Finding Destiny
by Victoria Hughes
Summary: CH.3 UP. TF:RotF movie adaptation. With the entire world chasing down Sam while he slowly goes insane, Bumblebee must do his best to protect him and find the Matrix before the Decepticons. Unfortunately, his only help isn't very helpful. Bumblebee POV.
1. Prologue

_All right guys – so I LOVED the second movie. I have reservations about it, of course, but overall, it was freaking epic. I've watched it twice while bearing in mind the intent to once again bring it down to Bumblebee's POV. For those of you who asked for it, well, uh, I'm feeling inspired._

_This adaptation will _not _have fully accurate dialogue. I will be basing dialogue that I am unclear on off the movie novelization. In other news, Bumblebee continues to be awesome and I wish he'd just been in the movie more. =D_

**Finding Destiny**

**Prologue**

_144 vorns ago, Tyger Pax, Cybertron_

"Tell me where the Allspark is!"

They were not soldiers.

Technically they were – inasmuch as every Cybertronian was a soldier, the capability and very need to destroy inscribed in their base protocols, underlying their central circuits and sparks. Some were outmoded with weapons: others, using their original tools for destruction now instead of construction. They had the Autobot symbol inscribed upon them, having declared favor for that side, and they stood guard, but they were not soldiers.

A small militia consisting of technical engineers and maintenance bots, they were never meant to hold ground in face of such a frontal assault.

Now stripped to the barest protoform, the Autobot under interrogation flinched violently. "I don't know! I honestly do not know!"

He didn't. Amongst the force of sixteen, now cut to seven under fire, only one of them knew the answer to that question.

"Then die!" The faceplates of the Decepticon designated Swindle pulled back into a garish smile as he fired point-blank into the bared protoform's chest, instantly killing the Autobot. He slumped to the ground, the light gone from his optics.

They held up well under the circumstances, the other captives cringing at their comrade's death but none of them breaking down. They knew their fate – all but one, they could give no other answer but an honest denial of knowledge – but they did not plead for mercy, did not break radio silence over broken encryptions to express their fear.

Bumblebee mentally commended them – his team, his cohort, the very group to have commissioned his spark – and knew he was about to watch all of them die.

He alone had the information the Decepticons desired: the location of the Allspark.

"Bring me the next one!" Swindle sneered as the dead protoform was dragged away.

It might have been in honor to know, had the situation not been so dangerous. The information had not been entrusted to him lightly, but nor was it done out of anything other than necessity. The cohort leader, Bulkhead, had been slagged a vorn previous, leaving Bumblebee in charge of space bridge maintenance over Tyger Pax, and so he was the go-to Cybertronian on the matter of nonspecific space bridge jumps. When the Autobot leaders had approached him on the matter, Bumblebee had been honored and humbled to be brought to Optimus Prime and asked, frankly, whether or not such a bridge could be covertly programmed to transport the most precious Allspark away from Cybertron.

It was a crazy idea – the kind of crazy that perhaps the crafty Megatron would not anticipate. Uneasy but unwilling to refuse the Cybertronian leader he had sworn allegiance to, Bumblebee had answered with honesty – and then followed Optimus' orders, insane though they were, trusting the Prime to do his best by the people of Cybertron.

Eject was rattling his plates together from honest terror as he was brought to Swindle. "I wonder," Swindle mused as he considered his plasma cannon, "will you be more cooperative?"

"E-E-Even if I k-knew where the Allspark was, d-do you think I-I-I would tell you, Decepticon?" Eject stammered, cycling his vents rapidly.

The heavily guarded Iacon was where the Decepticons were supposed to be focusing their attention! But they seemed to have sensed a decoy. Left where they had worked all their lives, left there to pretend business as normal and provide a minimal display of force at the Autobot outpost, when the Decepticons and their Seekers had fallen upon them they hadn't stood a chance.

To the credit of the Autobots within the stronghold preparing the Allspark for takeoff, the Cube was so well shielded that even Bumblebee's specialized EMS sensors could not pick up its signature. But he hoped they were hurrying: the Decepticons would not keep their attention on the small cohort forever, even if they were fun sport.

"Hmph. You're just about sweating energon," Swindle sneered. "I've known drones with more spinal plating than you, Autobot."

"E-Easy to be b-b-brave when you're s-stupid!" Eject snapped back, optics darting back and forth, going pleadingly to Bumblebee for one long, horrible astrosecond. The de facto leader of the cohort nearly leapt to his feet right then, desiring to come to the younger Cybertronian's rescue, but he would gain no ground exposing himself.

They were all the walking slagged. It was merely a matter of how soon.

The insults were both brave and stupid, but in the end they probably were responsible for Eject's quick and mostly painless death. As the minibot slumped to the ground lifelessly, Bumblebee flinched away, his gaze going to the ground as he struggled to steel himself for his inevitable interrogation.

Cut down to their basic protoforms, their encryptions hacked and internal radios disabled, their weapons destroyed before their eyes and in varying states of disrepair from battle, the cohort might as well have been helpless drones. Bumblebee was only relieved that the Doctor – and for that matter, Soundwave – were not on this detail, or no matter his bravery the information would be out of his central processors before he could shutter his optics.

He couldn't think beyond that, shielding grief and terror with relief and determination. He would not be the weak link in Optimus' chain.

"Bring me that one, the with his optics riveted to the rocks!" Swindle demanded. Bumblebee's head snapped up as he was hustled out of his kneeling position, dragged across the pockmarked crater, and deposited at Swindle's feet. "Oh yeah, this one knows something – I can tell," Swindle sneered, sharp protrusions in his mouthplates terrifyingly close to one of the Autobot's audio receptors.

Bumblebee couldn't fault the Decepticon for his instincts, although he wondered if he would have said the same thing about any of his cohort had one of the others been the next one to be brought forward for slaughter. He remained silent.

"You know, your silence just gives you away." Swindle stalked around Bumblebee. "All the babbling, it makes it obvious they only want a deal to survive. You – you think you have something to _protect._" Bumblebee could hear the sneer in his voice, and then the Decepticon wrapped his claws around one of his audio sensors, gripping it tightly. It didn't snap but static immediately assaulted him, causing Bumblebee to want nothing more than to claw that hand away. "This--!" Swindle hissed, hauling the smaller Cybertronian around by his claw, forcing him to look at the remainder of his team. "This is your cohort, right?"

In pain, his receptor hissing feedback and high-pitched whines, Bumblebee ground out, "If you need me to answer that …"

A wash of static at his EM sensors was all the warning the maintenance bot had before Swindle wasted Whiplash, the messenger bot's spark chamber vaporized by Swindle's plasma gun. His cohort startled away from the remains, exchanging horrified glances. "You know what I want to know!" he snapped, screaming into Bumblebee's other audio receptor, so close a capacitor overloaded and blew. The Autobot grimaced in pain. "Either protect your information or your cohort!"

Bumblebee clamped his faceplates back, locking them down to indifference and silence. The choice was so easy to make it wounded his spark. He had already made that choice when they stood their ground in battle, and again as they were killed before he was singled out.

"Well? Speak! You're just fragging them yourself like this, you know!"

The relatively young Autobot wished, in that moment, for reinforcements, for a miracle, for Primus Himself to come from the sky and declare the final battle upon them. Alas, fantasies they remained.

His cohort, brave to the end, would not look at him as they were executed in the name of interrogation.

Bumblebee promised himself he would never allow himself to be placed in such a position again.

&

Present day, San Franciso, California

When, Bumblebee wondered, had he come to think of the Witwicky backyard shed-cum-garage as 'home'?

"It's going over the Golden Gate Bridge! Give it some space, guys – it's going to get ugly," Lennox shouted from his driver's seat.

48 hours ago Bumblebee had been about as far from the Witwicky garage as possible – on a human military base in the Indian Ocean, running training exercises with the best-of-the-best new covert army ops N.E.S.T., de facto leader Captain Lennox. Commissioned by Defense Secretary Keller, the new organization was billed as 'international' but consisted almost entirely of American soldiers. Its purpose: a co-operational military alliance with the Autobots to annihilate Decepticon presence on Earth. Decommissioned from his assignment protecting Sam Witwicky in light of the new development, Bumblebee had reluctantly departed to join his comrades.

He wouldn't lie: it was fun, after a fashion. With a severe lack of actual Decepticons to fight, the training was serious but Bumblebee couldn't help feeling carefree. Starscream had departed the planet upon his leader's death – no surprise there. Jazz in particular had enjoyed seizing upon opportunities presented by the schism between Decepticon leader and second-in-command for some truly spectacular victories back on Cybertron, or so the stories went. Barricade's status was unknown, and the only real source of unease for Bumblebee. He knew where Sam lived, after all, but Prime and Ratchet had assessed the lone earthbound Decepticon too cowardly to dare Sam's neighborhood when attacking Sam would result in certain death. Still, Bumblebee would have felt better being there to make sure that remained true.

Nonetheless, Bumblebee was bound to follow Prime's orders first and foremost, and for the time being that had put him in association with N.E.S.T. He liked the soldiers well enough and Lennox most of all, the Captain being 'a cowboy' in Epps' words. "Just like you, you crazy robot," he'd assessed.

"I don't-t wraaangle c-c-cows," Bumblebee had told him wryly, his voice clicking over consonants and slurring through vowels. "And I do not-t think yo-o-ou would like-ke to see meee t-try to ride a horse."

"It means you'll do the craziest shit in battle." Epps smirked. "The. Craziest. Shit."

"Yes. We're working on that," Optimus had said in a slightly chastising tone.

It was like being back on the Ark, with Ironhide commending good shots and correcting poor ones and Ratchet screaming over the commlink that if they got themselves hurt in a fragging training mission he would replace all their internal weaponry with pellet guns - only with a lot more watching where he was stepping. Constantly aware of how fragile humans were and now spending most of his time in protoform rather than folded down into the shape of a car, Bumblebee found a good 2.86% of his processing strength was dedicated to algorithmic memory updates of the locations of the human soldiers at all times. Otherwise he felt quite comfortable around the human troops – trained combat men like himself.

And so they received their first mission as NEST-Autobot alliance: San Fransisco, California, where a Decepticon was spotted blowing up a gas station.

"Can't help but sympathize," Ironhide had commented privately to the other Autobots. "First time I ingested some of that slag I nearly chucked it right back out my injector. Wicked unpleasant surprise." Bumblebee had heartily related his own experience with human gasoline, drawing laughs and the confused attention of Technical Sergeant Epps. Unfortunately the joke didn't translate well.

More importantly, the spotted Decepticon had been identified as Swindle.

Upon identification Ironhide had looked at Bumblebee and the scout could almost feel Optimus Prime's gaze boring into the side of his head. Bumblebee had said nothing – not that he could. He had never fully recovered his voice after Mission City, and a stray shot to the neck by the briefly present Starscream months before had set him back to nearly voiceless. Ratchet had shut the whole node system down (under protest) for future work, but he was strapped for supplies and unable to work with what Earth could provide. ("If Wheeljack were here, maybe," he'd explained, making Ironhide roll his optics. "Not that I'd wish him in an inventive mood on anyone, much less this planet.")

After the discussion with the humans on the matter had come to a close Bumblebee had finally spoken up. _"I'd like the honor of slagging him, sir,"_ he'd admitted over uplink. What Swindle had done to Bumblebee himself was a painful memory that palled in the face of Megatron's immediately following, terrifying presence, but what Swindle had done to Bumblebee's cohort – killing them all in cold blood after incapacitating them – was unforgivable.

"You will join me on point," Optimus had promised.

As Bumblebee burned rubber in pursuit of Swindle over the Golden Gate Bridge now, he felt a dark glimmer of revenge deep in his spark.

Ahead of him sparks showered the road as the garishly purple Chevy Impala began to unfold into a familiar protoform with unfamiliar armor configurations. Bumblebee almost dumped Lennox from his interior at that exact moment to transform, only hesitating when Lennox bellowed, "It's transforming! First shots fired!"

Swindle had indeed opened fire, pock-marking the asphalt as Bumblebee swerved in avoidance. "_I can't escape these things inside … you don't know who I am, so let me go, let me go," _He played loudly over his radio.

Lennox choked on a laugh – the man's heart was pounding in his chest with eagerness and battle exhilaration. "Gotcha! Let me down easy, big guy," he gasped, and Bumblebee slowed a fraction before locking his opposite front tire, skidding sideways across the asphalt. He popped his door open and Lennox rolled out of his seat while the Autobot initiated transformation.

His hood lifted and bent, his grill separating and folding down as his front axles separated and admitted his arms from the undercarriage, fingers sliding from their protective plates to be revealed. His roof snapped into a myriad of separate armor plates as his doors folded up and across his back, and his legs reconfigured from the trunk while armor plating slid into place over his cerebral processors. As the final stages of transformation asserted the placement of small armor and gyroscopic plates in his feet, Bumblebee rolled across the ground and came up with his plasma cannon emerging from his arm; he fired at Swindle and got to his feet, 16.3 feet of bristling Autobot.

Swindle dodged the shot by ducking and rolling forward. Bumblebee had only briefly ever fought the other Decepticon, but he was wily, better known for his ability to stay alive by hiding and dodging than for kill counts. "One Autobot? They send _one _scout-class Autobot after _me?_" He charged forward, laughing madly.

Bumblebee let him get close – against his better judgment – but he wanted Swindle to know exactly who he was when he slagged the Decepticon. He had every confidence in his hand-to-hand skills, and not without reason.

But, he would realize in retrospect, perhaps he had overestimated himself in this case.

Swindle wasn't easy to enrage like Barricade and fought smart. Bumblebee met him head on with his feet braced against the ground, but Swindle planted one foot wide on his last step and hit the Autobot crossways unexpectedly, making Bumblebee stumble. The advantage of leverage lost, he went under when Swindle elbowed him in the side of the neck and roundhouse-kicked him to the road.

"Not much to say, I see," Swindle sneered, attempting to stomp on Bumblebee's back; the Autobot rolled aside and into a crouch, swinging one foot around in a gamely attempt to trip the Impala. Swindle staggered back a step to avoid it, but he didn't shut up. "Can't imagine why _that _might be the case--!"

Bumblebee launched himself at Swindle's torso, but the Decepticon caught his arms in a grappling lock. Straining pistons against pistons, their faces close together, the Decepticon's faceplates registered smug recognition. "They sent _you!_ Hah! The Prime must be truly strapped for help if he's got a mute drone on his front lines!" He lunged forward slightly as if to knock their armored heads together. "And all by yourself. No cohorts for you nowadays, hm?"

"_I'll be the last thing you see before you die." _The line came from an old 'B-movie' (movies of a poorer quality than 'A-movies', but they always had the best quotes for his clip files!) Bumblebee redoubled his efforts, rerouting power to his fresh-built legs to stretch pistons just a little further.

"Hey!"

It was gratifying to see Swindle startled, brief though it was. Caught off-guard by the third voice, Swindle let up on the pressure just enough to give Bumblebee the ground he needed to shove the Decepticon back.

"Don't forget about me!"

Swindle overbalanced, tipping backwards, but (very graciously, Bumblebee would tell his comrades later) the Autobot tightened his grip on one arm and swung Swindle up into a chokehold. The Decepticon slammed a fist into the unprotected circuitry of his lower torso but did not have the traction to prevent Bumblebee from wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling Swindle's backplates flush against his chest. The Decepticon, not much larger than Bumblebee, struggled to throw the Autobot over his back but the Autobot hooked one of his ankles first, leaving Swindle immobile for one critical second.

Lennox, crouched on the asphalt 75 meters away, was sighting down the barrel of a saber round gun. Swindle had enough time to snarl "Insect!" in infuriated Cybertronian before the saber round bored into his chestplates.

It wasn't enough; the heat of the saber round could melt metal, but the spark chamber was made of sterner stuff than even the armor plates around it. Swindle screamed in fury, twitching once, before loading his plasma cannon to return fire.

He never got the chance. Bumblebee buried his hands in the Decepticon's mouthplates and began to pry jaw from cerebral plating.

Swindle screamed again. Most of a Cybertronian's central processors were located in the chest cavity, protected by the spark chamber plating, but a good portion of general programming was located in what humans would have referred to as the 'brain cavity'. More importantly most models had their main optics and audio receptors located in the cerebral processors. If a Cybertronian's head was cut off, the Cybertronian was usually not 'dead' in the traditional sense but immediate stasis lock would be necessary.

Swindle burst into movement, armor joints locking and folding as he attempted to escape Bumblebee's hands by folding into his alt-mode. Bumblebee tripped him forward and half-fell on the Decepticon's back, knee shoved into spinal plating and smashing a foot down on Swindle's upper arm, locking transformation for the moment. "Get off! Get _off!_" A stream of Cybertronian swear words poured from Swindle's vocal processors. "Don't think this is the end! We are coming--!" But Bumblebee got enough leverage to give a good yank that destroyed the projecting hardware. Circuitry snapped and fizzled and tingled against Bumblebee's hands.

He pried the upper half of Swindle's head off his body. The remains scrabbled at the ground for an instant as central processors struggled to find a directive and waited for LOGItac to explain why everything was dark and silent, but finally the protoform trembled and stilled.

Bumblebee shot it once in the back to extinguish its spark, and stood, dropping Swindle's upper head next to the body. Satisfaction suffused his circuits.

"Holy – 'Bee, that was _brutal,_" Lennox was saying, half-jogging across the stripped and destroyed asphalt of the bridge. "Hardcore brutal."

"_I had a score to settle with him,_" an ominous-sounding man in an action flick snarled over Bumblebee's radio. Bumblebee stepped over the remaining protoform, getting to his knees to transform back into a car, and he finally flipped his internal radio back into the joint commlink of the Autobot team.

_Swindle is slagged STOP._

Silence greeted him initially. To no one's surprise, Ironhide responded first. _"Felt good, huh?"_

_Yeah STOP, _Bumblebee agreed as Lennox climbed back into his interior, shaking his head as he called for the clean-up crew. _Really good STOP._

He never looked back.

&

Out of all the Autobots, Bumblebee had lived on earth the longest, observing their behavior and searching for the Allspark for four long years of solitude. However, for all the time he had spent on the planet, he found there was always more to learn about humans – especially their rules.

The only rules Bumblebee had learned to observe were those of the road. Speed limits (annoyingly low), signals at intersections (humans had a strong preference for color-coding), right-of-way, courtesy laws, parking laws – the rules of the road were many and varied. But as much as humans liked to govern their roadways they enjoyed governing every other aspect of their lives even more.

He had not needed to know these rules. His actual interaction with humankind had been heavily limited – even more so when Barricade had destroyed his holoform tech. Now, however, human laws informed so much of his life he wondered how humans got _anything _done without worrying about breaking laws. (Bumblebee had read once, on a website, that a law in Cleveland, Ohio forbade humans from 'slurping' drink-like meals called 'soup'. He found this law so absurd he had started laughing abruptly, drawing the attention of the other Autobots. Attempting to explain had only made him disappointed Jazz was dead – _he _would have found it funny.)

As far as Bumblebee and the other Autobots were concerned, San Francisco was a job well done. Dead End and Swindle had both been quickly located and slagged. No humans had been killed. In fact, the only real flaw in the operation had been Bumblebee. Apologizing profusely and embarrassed by how he'd forgotten his main function (gathering intelligence), Bumblebee had presented the limited intel revealed by Swindle's dying words – _"We are coming!"_ – drawing consternation from the others.

"Wish there was more to go on," Ratchet grumbled, scratching his cerebral plating.

_There might have been if I hadn't been so quick to kill him, _Bumblebee had answered, abashed, over uplink.

"What's done is done," Optimus had admonished. "We understand. It will not happen again, I trust?"

_No, sir._

"Then it is in the past. I will present this information to the humans and deliberate on it myself." And so they had, translating the Cybertronian message into English and handing over the soundbyte for consideration.

The humans, however, were not pleased in any way, shape, or form with the battle in San Francisco.

"So," Lennox told the gathered Autobots two days after the assault, "they're telling me we made a mess of things."

"What?" Ironhide was appropriately enraged, the Topkick revving his engine. "That operation went perfectly! A better outcome could not be asked for! Are your superiors suffering from some kind of cranial damage? If so I can certainly relieve them of their damaged circuits by _taking off their heads--!"_

"Easy," Optimus cautioned, his wheels turning in Ironhide's direction in preparation to intercept the weapons specialist should he decide to make good on his word. "Captain Lennox, it is true that from our perspective the mission was a complete success. What do your superiors feel we could have improved upon?"

"'Mess of things' my aft," Ironhide was grumbling under his engine. "I'll mess up some things – like the arrangement of certain skeletal structures."

Lennox scratched the back of his head. "Mostly they're not liking the fact that battle took place in exposed, populated areas. I mean, you guys killed Dead End in waterfront property and we kind of took out Swindle on the most prominent tourist attraction of the area," he admitted, twitching a finger back and forth between himself and Bumblebee in indication.

_So, we are to lure the Decepticons out into open, empty places every time we enter battle? _Bumblebee wondered. Such tactics had met with limited success on other planets. Bumblebee didn't particularly enjoy playing 'bait' either, which he inevitably would, deceptively small and under-armored.

"This is the first major combat situation since the Allspark's destruction," Ratchet put in thoughtfully. "Compared to the loss of life and severity of that battle, I would think your military officials should be especially pleased."

"You'd think," Lennox grumbled, drawing an agreeing growl from Ironhide. "Okay, guys, look: I'm really, _really _lucky they didn't Geneva Convention my ass or throw me in the brig for disorderly conduct over Mission City. Like, lucky like you wouldn't believe."

_Geneva Convention his ass? _Bumblebee was no communications expert, but he was pretty sure Lennox had just replaced a verb with a noun, which didn't make much sense in the English language. He filed the verb-noun away for future analysis.

"Mission City is like the worst-case-scenario situation, not the stick by which all our future skirmishes are gonna get measured," Lennox continued. "It's just as important to my bosses that you guys stay under wraps as that humans don't get killed."

"_Under … wraps?"_ Optimus queried over their commlink.

_Remain hidden or kept secret, sir STOP, _Bumblebee answered, knowing the answer to that one from Sam's cautioning rambles about the same subject.

"We do battle in a major city, humans _die_, and your 'President' thinks that Cybertronian presence will remain a _secret_?" Ironhide snarled.

"He only lends the Decepticons a helping hand," Ratchet interjected. "They specialize in infiltration. Did no one take into account that most of them took on military vehicle alt-modes? At the very least your entire military should be aware of our capabilities."

Lennox scratched his head again, casting his eyes heavenwards as if asking Primus for help. "I know we talked about this before, Ironhide. If everyone knew it could cause some serious panic. I mean, how would you feel if you never could be sure the car you were looking at was a car?" He hesitated at their silence. "Okay, maybe you wouldn't understand."

Bumblebee did; Jazz would have too, having also been in extremely hostile situations where one never knew the enemy's alt-modes. _"I understand, raise my right hand up to God,_" the scout played.

Lennox shot the Camaro a look of relief. "See? Exactly. So basically, I don't know if any of you remember, but you're not supposed to ever transform in public."

Again a brief, stunned silence met this. Bumblebee remembered hearing about this a couple of months ago, but LOGItac programs had dropped the information from all but his memory banks after discarding it as useless. It was one thing for Optimus Prime to remain in alt-mode – he could roll over some transformed Decepticons with little difficulty – but for smaller Autobots like himself, realism required he utilize his protoform for all head-to-head combat situations. From the silent reaction of his comrades, Bumblebee had little doubt they felt much the same way.

"Ridiculous," Ratchet finally said. "I refuse to go into battle virtually defenseless. That's madness, and I – with all due respect to Optimus – will not allow my comrades to go into battle that way."

Optimus' engine revved as Ratchet subsided. "Ratchet speaks wisely. Even if I did not consider these my friends, we cannot afford to lose even one of us for the sake of foolish protocols. I will speak with your officers on the first opportunity and attempt to come to some sort of understanding."

Lennox jabbed a finger in Optimus' direction. "See, I tried to tell them they were idiots! But you – If _you _tell 'em, they'll have no choice but to listen." Bumblebee couldn't help but observe the intimidating factor of Optimus Prime's height and build was always fun to behold. "Plus, they can't court-martial you."

The Prime actually laughed at that, a sound like his engine switching gears at a high revolution. "I see! Is there anything else?"

"A bunch of technical stuff – I'll have the download for you in an hour," Lennox said dismissively.

Humans, like Autobots (and Cybertronians before them), would spend as much time (if not more!) post-combat analyzing how the battle was conducted. However, unlike Cybertronians, the intent of such analysis seemed to not be improvement on tactics or improved understanding of the enemy, but rather assigning blame. The report of Mission City had been issued to the Autobots on paper, but reading the tiny print – and even handling the paper the report was written on! – proved too much of a challenge for the relatively large alien robots. (Optimus Prime in particular had trouble. The entire report was smaller than his first thumb joint.) Later that report and all subsequent were issued to the robotic allies as downloads.

"Very good. That aside, I need to speak with you about the information Bumblebee gleaned from Swindle."

Lennox nodded thoughtfully, crossing his arms and his focus on the ground. "Yeah. Yeah, Secretary Keller was pretty interested in that one, too. 'We are coming' – sounded pretty ominous." He looked up again. "What're they coming _for?_ You have any idea?"

"Nothing but educated guesses," Optimus admitted. He had discussed the matter extensively with Bumblebee earlier, and now he related what they had discussed. "It is possible they seek revenge – against us, and against the Earth – for the destruction of the Allspark and Megatron's death. I do not doubt there are those amongst their army that would seek out all the agents of their end, since we eliminated not only their leader but one of the greatest assets at our disposal – a source of endless warriors. Still, they followed Megatron out of fear as much as loyalty, and it is our sincerest hope the Decepticons will fall to squabbling over the power vacuum.

"However, to the best of Autobot knowledge, there is nothing material left on this planet for the Decepticons to come after, besides the Allspark fragment that remains and has only the most limited use. Nonetheless you must understand that when the Allspark was destroyed, we lost not only our only source of life but also our greatest repository of Cybertronian knowledge and history. Even I do not know the fullness of our past, and I can never know it without the Cube.

"Perhaps our worlds have met before; perhaps Earth retains some value to the Decepticons that we do not know. What we _do _know is that more of the enemy will come, and we must be here to stop them."

Lennox pressed his thumb against his chin, a gesture of consideration amongst humans. "So. You're allied with us but it's not like you actually come under our command – not that we don't appreciate your co-operation with us," he quickly added. "What's your next move?"

Bumblebee broke in then. "_I'm going home, I'm going home, oh the wind is calling and the leaves are falling, and I must get on the road …!"_

Lennox's shoulders jerked at the sudden burst of noise, and he laughed, a short, loud sound of surprise. "What?"

Optimus explained, "Since we cannot know the exact nature of the threat, I have decided it is prudent to put a detail on Sam Witwicky again – after all, he was key in Megatron's death and the Cube's end. I believe you can guess who I have in mind for the job."

"Seriously?" Lennox shook his head. "Optimus, I … I don't want to tell you what to do with your own troops, but we could really use Bumblebee here."

Bumblebee preened a little over that, enjoying how much his presence was appreciated. Ratchet's vents cycled; the medic seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.

"I know. We are spread too thin as it is," Optimus agreed. "But in my judgment, Bumblebee is needed more at the Witwicky home. I would not see Sam injured or killed due to some oversight on our part."

Lennox drew a breath as if preparing to present another argument, but he only let it out in a long sigh. "He's your man," was all he said.

"Your government will not object?" the Prime inquired, unfailingly polite about the American government demanding to know all Autobot business. It frustrated Ironhide to no end, and Ratchet took it in stride – Bumblebee was aware of the situation, of course, but he tried to put the matter from his processors, remembering that local politics were Optimus Prime's business.

"Oh, I'm sure they'll put up a stink, but what do you care? He's _your _man. Do what you gotta do with him." Lennox didn't seem very pleased, but Bumblebee found his respect for the man – already quite high – rose another notch as he refused to question Optimus' orders further. "I won't lie, we'll miss him, but I guess we'll figure it out."

"More Autobots will come," the Prime said optimistically. The H2 Hummer that was Ratchet visibly locked his wheels in an effort to not broadcast his doubt. "And should it come to disaster, I will bear responsibility for my decisions before any judge – human or otherwise."

_To be continued_

_Music credits go to 3 Doors Down ("Let Me Go"), B.B. King ("I Understand"), and Chris de Burgh ("I'm Going Home"). The beginning content of this chapter can be credited to the IDW prequel comic for the first movie, and the rest of the content of this chapter can be credited to _Transformers: Alliance, _the IDW prequel comic to the new movie (with abounding creative license) __The character Whiplash that makes a one-line appearance early in this chapter is an OC created by Conna Stevenson here on ff dot net. He's extremely lovable, and I highly recommend the fic about him! I used him without permission because I couldn't think of any other Autobots at the time of writing this chapter. Sorry, Conna!_

_If you didn't like the second movie and you're reviewing just to tell me that, please don't bother (even though I do understand!) Otherwise, all reviews are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!_


	2. Saying Goodbye

**Chapter 1: Saying Goodbye**

_11 months 3 days later – mid August 2009, Witwicky Residence, Tranquility, Nevada_

The Witwicky family was in virtual uproar, the humans running back and forth to the family Jeep Cherokee SUV (which had replaced the Oldsmobile several months before) with boxes and travel bags. In a matter of hours the entire family would abandon their home, each gone to their respective destinations.

Bumblebee, folded into his Camaro shape and running his power so low he may as well have been in recharge, listened to the goings-on with half an audio receptor as the parents prepared their only son for his first semester of college.

Eleven months previous Bumblebee's return to the Witwicky home had been met with double-fold joy; Sam was not only thrilled to have back his friend but also his car, after all. The parents had been less thrilled, although their consternation was muted by a promise from the American government to pay for any property damage Bumblebee caused. (Bumblebee was slightly insulted by the insinuation – after all, what damage had _he_ done to the Witwicky home during the Allspark fiasco?)

Living with Sam was kind of like being on 'extended leave'. The term, which popped up occasionally amongst the soldiers of N.E.S.T., had meant nothing to the Autobot. 'Leave', periods of time in which soldiers were allowed to go to their families and rest without going to battle, did not exist for the Cybertronians. Of course, it wasn't really 'leave' – his job, to protect Sam, was as serious as ever, but while his comrades were flown all over the Earth to battle Decepticons, Bumblebee performed routine patrols around Tranquility. While Optimus negotiated with the upper echelons of the American government, Bumblebee drove Sam back and forth from school and visited Mikaela's house, got car washes, and idled in the Witwicky backyard shed (cleared out and prepped for Bumblebee at Sam's insistence. Bumblebee had offered to help but if possible, the family was more paranoid about Bumblebee being seen in protoform than the American government.)

("Do you miss it?" Sam asked one evening, sitting in Bumblebee's interior as the Camaro took him home. "You know – all the, I dunno – action? I mean, I'd never want to go through anything like Mission City again but sometimes I feel like I was actually doing something … you know … worthwhile. Kinda makes school seem like a waste of time, when you know there's alien robots coming to kill us."

"_The cool stay in school!_" Bumblebee's engine revved as he jokingly played a clip of a motivational commercial.

"Knock it off," Sam groaned, his head bouncing gently off the driver's seat. In truth, Sam's parents were very pleased with Sam's progress in school. When Bumblebee remembered that Sam had needed three 'A's to acquire a car the year previous, the transformation seemed miraculous. The youngest Witwicky was, in his words, 'acing' all his classes, which seemed to be a good thing. "But seriously, 'Bee …"

"_I wouldn't have it any other way,_" a woman from a soap opera declared.

Sam groaned again, but he rubbed Bumblebee's dash in appreciation. "Thanks, dude.")

In truth, Bumblebee was not used to being where the action wasn't. Still, Sam and Mikaela's presence more than made up for it. The Camaro took great pleasure in greeting Mikaela with the lyrics of Elvis Presley's 'Pretty Woman' until Mikaela demanded he 'knock it off'. (Knock what off of what? Bumblebee didn't know.) Sam split his time between studying and time with Mikaela and 'Bee, suddenly taking school on with a kind of seriousness that Bumblebee had not honestly expected.

The work paid off in spades. In late April, Sam discovered he had been admitted to Princeton University in New Jersey, clear across the continent of North America. It was an 'Ivy League' school, which did not refer to the winding greenery that clung to the sides of older buildings but rather to the prestige of the college. University itself being optional, thousands of students were still turned away from its doors via applications. The accomplishment had led Ron and Judy Witwicky to take their son out to dinner and throw a barbeque for Sam, Mikaela, and their families, showing what a big deal it was. (Once Miles would have been part of the proceedings, but since Bumblebee's return Sam had not spoken with the other boy except in passing. The Autobot wondered what had happened but decided not to ask.)

Mikaela had no intention of attending college by contrast. In the year following Mission City Mikaela's father had been released from prison and became employed in a auto body shop, detailing and repairing vehicles. Mikaela had taken it upon herself to help her father get back on his feet. Sam had lamented her decision to stay in Tranquility for five months straight now. Privately Bumblebee lamented as well: he would miss her deeply while stationed in New Jersey.

At the moment Judy Witwicky sounded as if someone was strangling her. "L-look what I found," she stammered inside the house. "Y-your baby booties!"

_Baby booties? _Shoes someone had worn as an infant? What possible reason could Sam's mother have for hanging onto such useless things? While humans had a penchant for useless decorations around their houses and yards, baby shoes would not have been put on display, so the Autobot failed to see their value.

"Aw, Mom …" Sam groaned, apparently the party to this conversation.

"My little baby bootie is going away to college!" Judy Witwicky bawled.

"See, Dad, this is how you're supposed to react when the fruit of your loins is going away for the first time," Sam said, his voice muffled.

"Honey, get a hold of yourself." Ron Witwicky's voice followed close on the heels of his wife's.

"You have to come back for the holidays. And not just major ones!" Judy declared. "You have to come back for Halloween!"

She continued to elaborate on her argument as Sam spoke over her. "Mom, I'm not coming home for Halloween," he admonished.

"Then we'll come to you! We'll come in costume, they'll never even know it's us!"

The conversations went on and on in that general direction – Ron, never one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, seemed to be nonchalant about Sam's departure while Judy openly expressed her love for her 'baby boy' (as she repeatedly called Sam, although Sam was clearly no longer an infant). The parents had their own packing to do as well, leaving via a plane for Paris, France. They intended to stay in the distant city for an entire month. Sam had explained patiently to the Camaro that Paris was the 'city of love', so that was where couples were supposed to go. Bumblebee, increasingly familiar with human behavior and the Witwickys in particular, did not feel Sam's parents needed to travel halfway around the planet to express their love for one another: it was clear every day how devoted a family they were (and occasionally at night, when Sam was asleep. Bearing in mind the human tendency to keep such moments private, he did not relate the sounds he heard to their son).

Bumblebee's attention was not drawn again until Sam was on the phone. "—the event that cannot be mentioned over the phone." He paused, listening to the other end of the conversation, and Bumblebee resisted the urge to tap the signal. "Of course I still have it, it's like my Superbowl jersey. I bled in this thing." The cultural reference made no sense to the Autobot but he did find it amusing that Sam had kept his clothes from Mission City. "… Mikaela, wait."

Something distressingly familiar but seemingly distant echoed off Bumblebee's doors. The Autobot came to immediate attention.

"I think a piece of the Allspark got stuck on my shirt …"

The signal fluttered. Sam gave a shout of dismay and again the signal spiked before falling. Bumblebee sat up on his axles, every sensor straining towards the EM signal.

_The Allspark?_

The scout had experienced readings of what matched the Allspark's signal from time to time ever since Mission City – usually around Sam, but occasionally around Lennox and often around Optimus Prime. LOGItac dismissed the signals out of hand as data errors. Bumblebee felt relatively sure the readings were the product of some kind of EMS echo off those who had interacted with the Allspark extensively, perhaps brought on by his own interaction with it.

The Allspark had shed more than a few splinters from Megatron's destroyed spark after the battle at Mission City, but their readings were minimal and dismissed by human and Autobot alike – only one shard had been preserved, the others contained and hidden away in the depths of some human warehouse with shielding to be ignored for the rest of time. Perhaps, in light of this sudden bizarre development, they had been too quick to act.

The signal was gone except for a light, low flutter that barely registered. Bumblebee struggled to isolate it, but his processors refused to recognize the signal as anything other than background noise. Before he could try again, Sam started shouting again. "Oh no, oh no oh no, FIRE!"

Bumblebee pointedly did not charge out of the Witwicky garage at the shouts. Most household disasters that merited screaming did not, it turned out, merit Autobot intervention. The second time Bumblebee had tried to come to the rescue of his adopted human family he had discovered the screaming regarded Mojo peeing on the living room carpet. The repairs the garage had to undergo turned out far more expensive than lifting the urine stain off the floor, and Sam had chastened Bumblebee as if he were a human child and not an autonomous robotic organism older than human civilization itself. They had come to the agreement that Bumblebee would not charge into battle unless Sam yelled for him directly or Bumblebee sensed a Decepticon approaching.

So Bumblebee, now fully alert and practically vibrating with the desire to leap from the garage, let Sam handle the fire by himself.

The family understandably went up in an uproar at the shouts. The Autobot, receiving input from several arrays, realized he could feel individual EM signals from multiple small sources moving through the house. Confused, he tried to hone in on their sources to discern what he heard and felt, but the shouts of the family were too loud.

The sound of machine gun bullets in the backyard had his attention immediately, though.

Bumblebee could honestly say he had not heard gunshots or any kind of weapon being unloaded for close to an entire solar year. He hesitated for three point six seconds, enough time for twenty-two bullets to be unleashed (making the machine gun officially faster than anything Earth should have been able to produce), when Sam screamed, "_BUMBLEBEE!"_

_Finally!_ The Camaro's engine roared and the Autobot tore through the flimsy wooden covering he called home with ease, transforming as the sun's rays hit his hood. Rolling forward, he came to a crouch and instantly assessed the situation.

Tiny Decepticons were crowding the lawn before his optics, actively seeking out the humans with weapons firing. Sam and Ron had sought dubious shelter behind the decorative ceramic fountain in the middle of the yard. Putting aside the source of the sudden appearance of the minibots for the moment, Bumblebee immediately began to unload his plasma cannon, heedless of how it pockmarked the yard and showered the humans with harmless dirt.

Not a single shot missed, the miniature Transformers obliterated instantly. Their armor was negligible and their enraged chatter nothing but the most rudimentary Cybertronian. EM sensors alerted Bumblebee to the presence of two more intruders on the upper balcony, and the Autobot didn't hesitate to blast them both away with one shot.

Unfortunately, the blast also took out a good portion of the Witwicky family's roof and most of their spare bedroom. Bumblebee cringed slightly but assessed the damage as acceptable collateral for the removal of a threat to Sam's person.

Silence met his audio sensors, save for the harsh breathing of Sam and his father and the sound of wood splinters clattering on the driveway. The Decepticon threat entirely removed, Bumblebee surveyed both the damage and the rest of the house for any possible reinforcements. Sam's mother ran out of the house with two pot lids clutched around her head as if for protection, her eyes squeezed shut. She promptly hit her cranium against a hanging potted plant on the porch and fell backwards.

Technically it was 'mission accomplished'. Bumblebee looked down at Sam to assess whether or not his friend was hurt but Sam appeared unharmed, although his heart was beating too fast; Sam was staring at the top half of their home, mouth hanging open. Judy was stunned but unharmed. Ron staggered to his feet, running towards his wife. "Judy! W-we gotta call 911!"

"Bumblebee!" The Autobot's optics dilated when Sam abruptly looked back up at him. "Go – get back in the garage!" He sounded angry or at least exasperated, his mouth downturned even though his eyes were still wide.

Bumblebee made a protesting sound, thrusting open and upturned palms towards Sam and then at the house. _You're _angry? _But there were Decepticons in there! I saved you!_ His broken voice struggled to articulate all this but just produced unintelligible sounds.

Sam was not to be swayed. "Look, just – I'm about to have a nervous breakdown here. Oh my god. The house. My parents – just – back in the garage!" He waved his hands noncommittally before finally lacing his fingers together and bracing them on the top of his head, a familiar gesture of frustration.

_First you want one thing, then you want another ... _Bumblebee threw up his hands in disgust, turning on his heel to stomp back to the shed. _Fine! _The supposedly sturdy oak boards that made up the wall were broken and splintered, and he crouched to slip into the hole.

"That's right – get back in the garage!" Ron shouted after him.

Bumblebee cycled his vents long and loud, cycling through soundbytes and radio stations for an appropriate comeback before giving up on the idea. Banished back into the garage like a recalcitrant human child, he didn't feel much more mature than one at the moment either.

The Autobot thought he had experienced all there was to experience of culture shock. Humans were, in every superficial way, utterly alien to the Cybertronians – from having multiple countries spanning their world to the functions of their biological bodies. Nonetheless, Bumblebee was astonished and disappointed by Sam's complete lack of gratitude for his actions today.

Remembering belatedly that Sam's parents intended to call emergency services to their house, he halfway crawled out of the shed to throw a readily available tarp over the hole exposing his protoform to sunlight. (The tarp had been a staple by the garage ever since Bumblebee's first burst to freedom ten months previous.) As the sirens of the emergency vehicles approached, Bumblebee replayed the brief skirmish over his memory banks and LOGItac.

Of course his execution had been perfect. None of the Witwickys had been harmed and the invading force had been eliminated within fifteen seconds of engagement. But as a fundamental living computer, the Autobot re-examined the situation while disabling his own biases and experience and slowly figured out what was 'wrong'. From Sam's point of view, the threat had been eliminated with too much force. Bumblebee was actually _over_powered for engaging cassette-sized enemies of a make similar to Frenzy. From the point of view of Sam's parents, the collateral damage to the house was not acceptable. At first the priority system seemed illogical but on reflection it did make sense that they held their home in high regard. Shelter was one of the three essentials to human existence and the scout had just severely damaged theirs. Furthermore the amount of time spent on maintaining the house indicated their high regard and he had dismissed it out of hand for their personal safety. A not entirely logical approach, but then, humans were not always very logical creatures.

By the time he had cycled the battle through his processors half a dozen times Bumblebee realized he was not mad at Sam. He was simply distressed that Sam was upset with him.

"I can't deal with having an alien _psycho robot _living in my garage!" Judy wailed from somewhere in the yard.

_Fragging idiot! _Bumblebee banged the heel of his hand into his cerebral armor as if to knock loose his alien sensibilities. _The harder I try the more I seem to simply infuriate everyone!_

Naturally, it was during this self-abuse that Sam stepped through the cracked-open door of the garage, followed closely by Mikaela. In the myriad of humans wandering around the yard it was understandable that Bumblebee hadn't noticed the female's arrival, but it only increased his internal consternation. He looked up, embarrassed to be caught attempting to dent his own armor.

"Yeah, that's right, you know you're in trouble," Sam grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets as he looked up at the not-a-car.

"Hey, 'Bee," Mikaela said, smiling as if she was somehow not aware of the situation. "Still having voice trouble?"

"_Uh-huh,_" Bumblebee warbled, the human wordless confirmation sound well approximated in the multi-tones of his broken voice. Still, the way Mikaela gave him a sympathetic sound in response delighted him.

"He's playing it up," Sam whispered to Mikaela, half-smiling. All three of them knew Bumblebee could barely get a word out, after all. "Hey, I gotta talk to 'Bee real quick. Can you give us a moment?"

"Sure," Mikaela said breezily. She turned back to the door. "Bye, 'Bee."

"_Buh-bye,_" Bumblebee answered, waving one hand half-heartedly.

Being chastised by Sam was a completely different experience from being chastised by Optimus – it bothered him in a completely different way, partly because he was constantly surprised by the ways in which he could annoy the human whereas he always knew where he stood with his commander. But while Optimus called him an 'old friend', the scout Autobot knew he would never have declared the same of the Prime – he was devoted to Optimus and cared about him but he was always Bumblebee's commander first and foremost. Sam was his friend, not his commander, and Bumblebee desired Sam's approval in an entirely different way than he desired the approval of the Prime. He steeled himself for an uncomfortable one-sided conversation.

But Sam seemed to have impulsively forgotten the events of the last 36 minutes. "'Bee, I wanted to talk to you about the college thing."

Bumblebee didn't hesitate. He sat up, equally thrilled to have his _faux pas _ignored and to discuss the upcoming cross-country trip. _"I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it!"_ He snapped metal fingers together in time with the beat.

"'Bee, 'Bee! I'm not taking you with me," Sam called over the music.

_What!?_ _"Awww,_" Bumblebee groaned, immediately cutting off his radio. Betrayed, he gave Sam his best approximation of a human's disappointed look, his shoulders drooping and his head falling forward.

"Aw, don't be like that," Sam said, fidgeting. "It's – it's not that I don't want to. It's just, they have this rule that freshman can't have cars on campus."

Another stupid human rule. For all the worlds Bumblebee had infiltrated and fought on, he never had to deal with so many governing laws as here on Earth.

"I know, stupid, right?" Sam let out a brief, nervous laugh, once again seeming to read Bumblebee's mind. "I meant to talk to you about this earlier, but everything just kept happening and I kind of forgot."

Bumblebee adored Sam, even his quirks and nervous habits. He wasn't surprised Sam had neglected to tell him about this development until the last minute, and he knew the real reason the human teenager had 'forgotten' – he hadn't wanted to break the news at all. Of course, Sam was forgetting that Bumblebee wasn't just his car, but his guardian as well. Allowed to have a parking space on campus or not, the scout would not leave Sam's side until Optimus ordered otherwise.

Nonetheless Bumblebee wasn't above shooting the messenger. The inherent rejection in refusing to allow the Camaro to accompany him to college wounded the Autobot, and after today he felt a little payback was due. Ducking his head with honest disappointment, he looked away from Sam.

"Aw, no." Sam's voice was full of apprehension.

_No, no; I'm not done yet. _Bumblebee put out one hand to stay Sam, then booted a subroutine that bathed his optics in windshield wiper fluid as he wheedled. Okay, he was overdoing it, but either predicted result – Sam feeling badly or starting to laugh at the 'tears' pouring down the Autobot's face – was desirable.

Sam must have felt quite guilty, because he took a step forward. "Aw, geez, please don't do that. Bumblebee … come on." He stretched up to press a small hand against Bumblebee's chin, and while the force was hardly enough to turn Bumblebee's relatively massive head, the Autobot allowed Sam's fingers to guide his gaze. "Look at me."

The Autobot met Sam's eyes. A human poet had said (in a quote Bumblebee found on the internet) that a human's eyes were the windows to the 'soul'. No quantitative data explained what a soul was, but the general qualitative knowledge conceded the 'soul' was eternal (lived on after death), had something to do with a human's emotions and personality, and was the 'true self' in some way, shape, or form. (This last definition made absolutely no sense to Bumblebee for a variety of reasons.) Sam's eyes themselves didn't tell Bumblebee much from his alien perspective, but the tilt of his eyebrows, the set of his mouth, and the tightening of his cheek muscles told the scout that the human was also sad about the upcoming separation.

"Look, you can't keep living here, you know?" Sam was saying, lowering his hand from Bumblebee's chin. "I mean, in this garage, all by yourself – you're suffocating here. A-and the whole guardian thing is over." Oh, how little Sam knew, having learned nothing of NEST or Autobot movement since Mission City. "I'm going to college to be normal. I – you know, I've gotta live my own life, do new things.

"You know I'll miss you." Sam swallowed. "You'll always be my first car."

_I'd like to be your only car. _Possible, in theory, if they stayed on this planet long enough and nothing slagged Bumblebee before he slagged it. But Sam smiled tremulously and seemed to have lost all the nerve he had left. "Love you, 'Bee."

Before Bumblebee could find an appropriate soundbyte to correct Sam or call him back, Sam ducked out of the garage door and shut it behind him. The Autobot was left dumbfounded.

_You ... love me? _Of course humans had many forms of love - parental, familial, between significant others - but the scout had never thought Sam would say such a thing to him. Sam had said from time to time that he loved his car, but this was not the same; at the time Sam had been referring to Bumblebee as an inanimate object, not as a friend.

It wasn't fair that Sam would say such a thing as a form of 'goodbye'.

&

No matter what Sam intended, Bumblebee would be seeing plenty of the boy (even if he didn't see much of Bumblebee). After feeling sorry for himself for a while in the garage, he set the matter aside to analyze the day's events from a different angle.

The appearance of the miniature Decepticons had immediately followed Sam mentioning a fragment of the Allspark. Never one to dismiss coincidences, Bumblebee assumed a cause and effect situation – somehow the Allspark splinter had either brought or created the small Transformers pouring from the house. More likely created them, given their poor armor and sudden, considerable numbers. The only comparable experience was one Bumblebee had not personally witnessed, when a few Transformers appeared immediately following the battle in Mission City, but it seemed similar.

So the Allspark fragment – one that was so small even Bumblebee had been unable to detect it until it was activated – was strong enough to spawn no less than ten sparks in an instant. _As expected of the Cube. _But what had activated it? Contact with Sam?

He needed to know where the fragment had gone. If the Decepticons knew of the power of even the splinters of the Allspark they would surely be interested in obtaining it.

Perhaps the Cube fragment _was_ the reason for the consistent arrival of more Decepticon troops on Earth. NEST and the other Autobots had traveled worldwide in response to increasing 'meteor' showers worldwide, so far successfully slagging all Decepticon newcomers without Autobot casualty. (The human death count continued to rise incrementally. As much as Bumblebee hated to admit it (and as much as it infuriated Ironhide), the Autobots were predictable in their befriending the sentient biological life on various planets. Their enemy quickly learned to exploit this by hiding in well-populated places, slowing the pace of Autobot pursuit and forcing them to hold back in battle. Unfortunately not all human lives could be protected in such circumstances.)

Sam technically knew nothing about the high incidence rate of Decepticon landfall: he had not even been informed of the arrival of more Autobots, now three months in the past. After signing an NDA – a legally binding paper that forbade Sam from talking about the Autobots and anything that occurred during the final battle for the Allspark – he was kept out of the circle of information that informed NEST. Bumblebee kept the information from him as well, not that it was difficult with no secure way to communicate the information in any kind of detail. Sam didn't seem to mind, although he occasionally asked after the other Autobots he knew. He had Captain Lennox's home phone number, but Sam's role in the saga of the Cybertronian civil war seemed to be done. When Sam assessed that the 'guardian thing' was over, he may very well have been correct; the only danger to the boy was a small chance of revenge.

Unless, of course, he was still carrying a shard of the Allspark. Unfortunately, asking Sam outright about what he'd done with it was virtually impossible as his family was piling into the car to go to the airport at that exact moment. Text messaging wasn't a viable form of communication about anything of an important nature: Bumblebee's encryptions were secure from any Decepticon but Sam's phone couldn't even accept the large files the encryption generated. In any case, Sam wasn't stupid and surely had put two and two together himself, and Bumblebee trusted Sam to secure the shard and put it someplace safe (although he wasn't certain why Sam hadn't entrusted it to Bumblebee. Perhaps he sensed the scout's reluctance to handle any part of the Cube.)

As he listened to Sam's family completing their final preparations before departure for the airport, Bumblebee scanned the house again for the Cube shard. He sensed nothing, but the signature fluttered so much he couldn't be certain. It spiked slightly where Sam and Mikaela were standing on the sidewalk, however. He started an isolating subroutine before folding back down into the shape of a Camaro and nudging his way through the whole he had put in the wall. The tarp caught on his front grille and the Autobot had to drive halfway across the already ruined lawn to get it off his hood and under his wheels.

"Oh, geez, it's him," Judy sighed upon seeing the Camaro, standing next to the family car with her husband.

Bumblebee found it increasingly difficult to communicate with humans while shaped as a Camaro. Cybertronians were not, by nature, as likely to gesture while speaking and their language was suited a race that did not always have a face to make expressions with, containing millions of 'words' more than English and a specificity humans could not hope to achieve. But lacking a voice, the prevalence of gesture and expression in human speech gave Bumblebee a 'leg up', so to speak (though the number of legs he had did not increase at any time). Attempts to use his holotech to ease the difficulty just confused or upset the humans more, so Bumblebee had given up on that, too.

He did his best under the circumstances. _"Momma I'm so sorry, I'm so obnoxious, my only accomplice is my conscience!"_ he played.

Judy Witwicky sighed, and Bumblebee was gratified to see a fleeting smile. "… well, I'm glad you're sorry. But you're still not staying."

"_I know, I know,_" a child's voice griped. The Camaro rolled as gently as possible across the yard and down the driveway, bouncing slightly as he hit the slight dip of the asphalt, and he steered into the view of Sam and Mikaela.

They were holding each other close, kissing and whispering to each other. Bumblebee hated to interrupt the moment, but he honked his horn anyway, aware of time growing short.

Sam startled more than Mikaela, his back stiffening as he twisted to look at his car. "Bee! Uh … you heading out?"

The Camaro idled. "_I think a shard of the kssht event that cannot be mentioned over the phone psht got stuck on my shirt._" Sam's voice said.

Sam colored slightly. "You were eavesdropping?"

But Mikaela reached for her bag. "Oh! Sam, uh – I've got it," she said, looking around as if suspecting spies. "Is that okay?"

"_Uh-huh_." Bumblebee bobbed slightly on his axles as if nodding. _"Give it to the proper authorities," _added a man from a police force television show.

"Don't worry. You know I'll keep it safe," Mikaela admonished, but she disentangled from Sam to stroke a hand up Bumblebee's hood. "I guess you're going to go back to the others, huh?"

Bumblebee doubted it, but he didn't bother to answer; Mikaela didn't wait for an answer, either. "Good luck." She pressed her fingers to her lips and then to the Camaro's roof – a kiss, in a way, and Bumblebee very politely refrained from playing an applause-wolf whistle clip at her. "I'll see you around."

"Hey, hey! You're not allowed to be better at saying goodbye to _my _car than I am," Sam complained. But he didn't approach, seeming to be as much at a loss for what to say as he had been in the garage. "… not that I can think of anything to say," he finally sighed as the silence stretched.

"_Friends never say goodbye! And through it all there will always be tomorrow's episode!" _Bumblebee rudely ruined the moment with the music.

"Bee! The _Backstreet Boys!? _I'm trying to be all profound here and you're playing the _Backstreet Boys?_" Sam groaned, slapping his hand against his forehead. Mikaela, who took great delight in laughing at Sam, started to do just that. "And you're not helping, geez." Sam took a deep breath and leaned forward, putting his head through the open driver's side window and looking at Bumblebee's interior. "Seriously. You – you know – go do what you gotta do. And I'll see you around, okay?"

_It might be sooner than you think, _Bumblebee thought with an answering rev of his engine. But when Sam straightened up, he simply drove away, activating his holoform driver.

Sam's plane would be leaving in two hours. He had at least 30 hours of driving ahead of him before he arrived at Princeton: he needed a head start.

_Tbc_

_Music credits go to Pointer Sisters (I'm So Excited), Clipse (Momma I'm So Sorry), and Backstreet Boys (Friends Never Say Goodbye). This story is getting shorter chapters than the first one so far! Um. I'm already facing minor logistical errors (like how did Wheelie notice the Cube shard but Bumblebee didn't? WHAT.)_

_Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter: leleana (Good to see you back! Haha, the comics are kind of lame but they're really useful), Crystal14 (Glad you're enjoying this!), Hellfirefanatic (Welcome back! I'm excited to have Bumblebee kick ass), CastielKicksAss (An SPN fan, haha! Hope the update came soon enough for you), Wide Spread Panic (thank you), Saigo no Hajime (The whole story is told in the comics as well, but I'm glad you enjoyed my adaptation!), DreamFeathers (I just use a good lyrics search engine, but trying to figure out Bee's speech is always a fun challenge), and Narratress (I hope you enjoy the rest)._

_Next chapter: Bumblebee meets Alice. It is definitely NOT love at first sight._

_Reviews are greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading!_


	3. You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

_Please go back and re-read the second chapter of this fic for some revisions, if you have the time. They don't affect this part of the fic but I wanted to more accurately reflect the original movie content._

**Chapter 2: You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello**

Frenzy's virus had long ago been purged from the human worldwide communications systems. Bumblebee uplinked to a satellite overhead by breaking the encryption with ease and performed an information dump as he started for the closet cross-country interstate. The message would hit Optimus Prime's processors within two minutes.

_Optimus, there are new developments with Sam. _He compressed the information about the skirmish, the Allspark shard, and his summary dismissal on Sam's part and sent the information.

Four minutes and twenty-six seconds later, Bumblebee got an answer. _We have new developments with the upper echelons of the American government as well, and new intel. Stand by._

Bumblebee wasn't surprised by the news. Over the past sixteen months since the presence of the Transformers had 'gone public' within the government, continuous Decepticon arrivals across the planet had aggravated the already tenuous relationship between the humans and their new visitors. The reason for the enemy's continuous assault had not been made clear. Normally Bumblebee would have spear-headed the quest for intelligence but Sam's safety had remained top priority since Swindle had warned of this very thing – more Decepticons were coming, and they were coming fast.

Without knowing what the Decepticons were after and given the Autobots' ready acknowledgement of their ongoing civil war, it was no surprise the humans believed the Decepticons were coming in ever greater numbers to enact revenge or to hunt down the Autobots. To Bumblebee it seemed clearer with every new arrival – every time on a different continent – that the Decepticons were searching for something. What, he did not know – the Allspark fragment, perhaps? Megatron's body? He had informed the Prime of his assessment just before the NEST team departed for Shanghai in China. Perhaps the new intel Optimus had would help explain the Decepticons' purpose.

On a more positive note, one landfall had been not Decepticons, but Autobots. The new arrivals were Sideswipe, a former trick racer who had been outmoded for stealth assassination; Arcee, who Ironhide had known on Cybertron and referred to occasionally as the Triplet; Jolt, a quiet Autobot who had been built after the war on Cybertron had started, and two rather idiotic spark-twins from the outer edges of the Cybertronian empire named Mudflap and Skids. Bumblebee had known of Sideswipe back on Cybertron and had met Jolt in passing long ago, but he had yet to meet any of the other arrivals. He had little doubt it was only a matter of time.

The real question, Bumblebee reflected, was how the Decepticons knew to come to Earth at all. Starscream was an unlikely culprit. His insubordination had helped the Autobots win more than one battle against the Decepticons. Then again, under his command the _Nemesis _had unerringly come to Earth after the Allspark and Megatron. Unless he still sought the Cube's remaining shard, he should have left Earth a year before to rally the Decepticons and set up his rule with Megatron dead. Barricade had fallen off the Autobot grid entirely: wherever he had holed up, he had not sent out a communication to the cosmos and had not stirred up significant trouble for months. Bumblebee would have suspected the Decepticons merely followed Megatron's signature, or perhaps the last gasp of the Allspark, but the frequency of their arrivals belied that conclusion.

Finally a datapak arrived. _The humans have come to the conclusion that we are to blame for the Decepticon attacks. They wonder if we will leave peacefully if asked. I have encouraged them to reconsider in light of a new warning issued in Shanghai: "THE FALLEN SHALL RISE AGAIN"._ The soundbyte was issued in English, curiously.

_The Fallen? _Bumblebee promptly inquired.

_It is a legend before your time, Bumblebee. I wonder now if I should not give it credence._ The transmission fell silent briefly. _It is a story of six Primes, and the one that betrayed them – the Fallen._

_Six … seven Primes? At once? _The idea dumbfounded Bumblebee. He had been brought online while Cybertron was under Optimus Prime's rule, and Ultra Magnus Prime had preceded him – single Primes who ruled for thousands of years.

_Yes. The Council was constructed to imitate such a structure._

_Why have I not heard this before? _Bumblebee asked.

_Even I do not know the legend properly – its full tale predates even me. I only know where the name 'Fallen' originates. The Allspark would have contained the information, but …_

In other words, the information was lost forever. Bumblebee revved his engine in disappointment. _But it seems the Fallen has something to do with Earth, then._

_That is what I believe._

The idea of the Decepticons desiring something on Earth that the Autobots knew nothing about had come up before in passing, but for even the slightest sliver of evidence pointing to such a truth made Bumblebee feel that it was even more important that they remain on Earth. _Sir, I am currently en route to Princeton, New Jersey to continue my guardianship over Sam. Do my orders still stand?_

Optimus' reply was slow in coming. _We may need Sam's help._ Bumblebee didn't reply immediately, and Optimus continued: _He had held the Allspark. He was instrumental in Megatron's downfall, and he saved my life. I consider him as a brother. I cannot, for all that I am, convince the humans how imperative it is that we remain on this planet, but perhaps Sam can._

_I do not know if Sam will be willing to take on that task, _Bumblebee replied. _He is very excited about college, sir._

_Then I will do my best to sway him. What is your ETA?_

Bumblebee did the calculation required. _Roughly 10 PM tomorrow, local time on the eastern seaboard of North America, _he reported.

_I will be there not long after, _Optimus promised. _Go, collect him, and I will tell you where to bring Sam so that I may speak with him. Hopefully he will be willing to aid us in our time of need._

_Hopefully, _the Camaro agreed. _Bumblebee out._

&

College. From what Bumblebee could gather on the Internet, humans were only required to complete school from roughly the ages of six to fourteen. High school, which consisted of classes for adolescents roughly fourteen to eighteen years old, was optional – although becoming successfully functioning members of society without a high school education was difficult. College, also called university, consisted of anywhere between four and ten years of further education. Performance at the high school level dictated where humans could go to college. Some colleges were 'better' than others, although what gave a school prestige and the right to declare itself 'Ivy League' seemed not to be based on the quality of the classes, but rather on the amount of classes it offered, how much it cost, and how well its name was known. (Given that 'movie stars' were given such credence and attention no matter how intelligent or idiotic they were, Bumblebee was not inclined to give much stock to the power of name recognition.)

Princeton was one such 'Ivy League' college. Getting into the school required students to have strong memory retention, the ability to perform well when tested on their knowledge, and also a good deal of money. While high school attendance was based on the region in which an adolescent lived, humans could go to any college in the entire country based on their choice and what schools would accept them. However, the school charged money for the classes themselves as well as living on the school grounds; they used the money to pay for the students' living expenses including food and access to technology and a place to sleep. Sam's father often griped about how much money it took to send Sam to school across the country, but since he valued Sam's education, he was still willing to pay.

The entire system seemed massively inefficient to Bumblebee, but he acknowledged that it was a necessary evil. Humans, after all, couldn't simply download the information they needed.

Sam, for his part, seemed very excited about the whole thing. He had told Bumblebee repeatedly how awesome it would be to live for the first time outside of his parents' home. He hadn't decided on a 'major' yet (which was not an officer rank like in the military, but rather a study concentration of the student's choice) but Sam was sure he'd find something interesting. He wondered what the food would be like and about his roommate (despite how much money Sam's parents were giving to the college, he still had to share a room with someone else). He would miss Mikaela but he'd talk to her every night on the Internet and over the phone.

Bumblebee had felt excited for Sam, and so for the first time in over a hundred vorns he received and obeyed Optimus Prime's orders to 'collect' Sam reluctantly. The last time he had felt any uncertainty about the Prime's orders had been back on Cybertron when Optimus had asked him if there was a way to send the Allspark away from Cybertron on a random trajectory via space bridge. (Last year when Sector Seven had captured him didn't count. He still didn't know what Prime's orders were at that time thanks to Frenzy's virus.)

The ride across the country was largely uneventful. The Great Plains, as the expanse of almost perfectly flat land in the middle of the continent was called, provided a great place for Bumblebee to open up his energon cycle and fly down the road at speeds well exceeding local limits. The American government, acknowledging them as aliens residing within their borders, had provided all the Autobots with diplomat license plates, which Lennox had helpfully explained were basically 'a license to do whatever you damn well please' as long as nobody died. Being necessarily much better at handling himself at great speeds than a human could hope to be, the Camaro flew down the straight, endless roads fearlessly.

Things got stickier the closer to New Jersey the Autobot got. He had not spent much time in the northeast part of America. The roads to the north were in disrepair and traffic became thick. Bumblebee was finally forced to submit to the rules of the road again in Pennsylvania, surrounded by humans who drove under the speed limit.

At 8:09 PM, Bumblebee received an uplink request. When he accepted, the datapak that came down almost had him veering off the road in horror. _The Allspark shard has been stolen._

_What!?_ Bumblebee corrected his steering and cycled his vents, releasing a blast of hot air. _How?_

He didn't need the reply to know the answer to that question, but it came readily enough: _A Decepticon attack. We suspect Ravage._

Another cassette, Ravage was considerably larger than his counterpart Frenzy. He was also considerably less creative, which meant somebody had issued a direct order to send Ravage on this mission. _Soundwave? _Bumblebee was almost afraid to ask.

_Perhaps. But he would have been hard-pressed to hide his landfall from humans and Autobots alike._ It was only a small comfort, since if any Decepticon was capable of slipping through the cracks of a defense network, it was Soundwave. And how else would Ravage have known where to go?

As the package data containing the details of the attack came through, Bumblebee ran it through LOGItac, analyzing the information. The last time the Autobots had anything to do with the Allspark was thirteen months and 8 days ago – when a rogue group consisting of Sector Seven members had revived Wreckage, a Decepticon they had captured sometime during Bumblebee's lone presence on Earth. Bumblebee, sent to retrieve the Cube shard along with Ironhide, had ended up in a considerable melee of Wreckage, Starscream (who was after the shard), and a myriad of humans all fighting one another. In the end, Starscream had fled empty-handed, Wreckage had been slagged by Bumblebee, and the Allspark shard had been safely retrieved and moved to a new, secure location under human surveillance. Only the Autobots and a select group of humans – no more than the members of NEST and a few of their supervisors – had known the new location.

Ironhide had proposed at the time of the incident that the Autobots take the shard back to the Ark. The idea had been rejected on two counts: the first being that with only four Autobots on Earth at the time, having any of their number up on the Ark to protect the shard would be spreading their forces too thin. Secondly, leaving the shard in human hands was a sign of goodwill. Ironhide hadn't been too impressed by the second argument, and given the history of the humans with Cybertronian technology Bumblebee was inclined to agree. Nonetheless the final decision fell to Optimus, who left the shard with the humans in the end.

Of course, there were ways to determine the location of the shard without direct geographical knowledge, but discerning one high-security location from another was a time-consuming task. Ravage, if the cassette was in fact the culprit, had unerringly located the shard and retrieved it without being detected until the infiltration was successful. A retroactive examination of worldwide data showed a single meteor landfall in the middle of the Pacific some six hours previous to the attack.

Someone had cracked into the most secret data of the American military and had the Allspark shard stolen in less than twenty-four hours; by comparison, three years of Barricade and one year of Starscream and Blackout flying and driving all over Earth had revealed nothing of importance. _Sir, _he wrote, _it has to be Soundwave. No one else in the Decepticon army is capable of cracking the humans' top-secret informational matrix so quickly and efficiently._

_Arcee feels the same way, _Optimus replied. _I have ordered the Autobots to maintain radio silence on longwave channels, just to be safe. And it is even more imperative that we gain Sam's help now._

_Why? _Bumblebee asked, unable to help feeling reluctant. _I believe in Sam, but—_

_He can remind the humans who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for: their very lives. _The Prime interrupted. _I am afraid they are less likely to believe us as foreign beings._

Bumblebee couldn't imagine _not _trusting Optimus Prime implicitly, but he replied in the affirmative. _At my current speed I will arrive at Sam's college within two hours. Maintaining longwave radio silence starting now._

_I will be within shortwave range in 183 minutes. Optimus Prime, out. _The uplink was cut.

Bumblebee shut down his own longwave uplink and grimly turned his full attention to the road. Sam would not likely be receptive to their overtures, but he would do his best.

&

But upon arriving at the campus Bumblebee found that locating Sam would be another whole adventure. It was easy enough to crack Princeton's floor plans and student information, allowing the scout to locate Sam's new living space (dormitory room, he remembered), but the room was devoid of human infrared signatures. He drove around the campus slowly, scanning the passing students, but Sam was not among them. (Under different circumstances Bumblebee might have gotten some amusement out of the stares of the young humans – some of them pointing at his alt-mode, others staring openly at his holoform, a female 'supermodel' design with long blonde hair.)

But Bumblebee was not a scout for nothing. There was no intel to go on, so Bumblebee once again accessed the human technological networks. Humans were obliged to pay for their use of technology, and their handheld communication devices – cell phones – were no exception. Various networks competed for business in the country of America. Although Sam didn't know, Bumblebee had access to all the information on Sam's phone – its carrier, serial number, encryption, and even its internal GPS tracker. Upon determining Sam was not on campus, it was the work of seconds to locate Sam via his cell phone.

Sam was several blocks away from campus in a residential zone. Bumblebee plotted the quickest route to the boy and left Princeton University.

The street Sam's phone was currently on had no less than twenty-three cars parked along it and twenty-six adolescents around Sam's age milling around, most of them on one particular yard. Loud, thrumming music emerged from the house where the greatest concentration of humans was located. Bumblebee, forced to drive slowly by the young humans who crossed the street without heed for vehicles on the street, rolled gradually closer to the loud music and the laughing, shouting humans. Bumblebee could smell the ethanol – well, the correct chemical arrangement was referred to as alcohol – and marijuana over the burn of his energon converter.

Sam was here? It seemed very unlike him. Sam flirted with the idea of doing dangerous or 'wrong' things, but left to his own devices the boy tended to err on the side of caution. While Sam had coaxed Bumblebee into some outrageous stunts (like doing three-sixties in a dried-up lake bed while Sam rode on his roof), Bumblebee felt confident in his assessment that Sam would never have tried such a thing with a normal vehicle. What, then, could get him into an environment like this? Had Bumblebee misunderstood Sam all this time and it was only the fear of parental retaliation that had kept him away from illegal activities?

_I refuse to doubt him. _Bumblebee revved his engine in warning and suddenly dove forward, parking himself on the lawn of the house. A few humans scattered and stared. "Dude, check it out! Sweet ride!"

"I think the racing stripes look stupid."

"Whose car is that? It's totally parked all over the lawn."

"Whoever has that ride is the luckiest dude ever."

In the darkness and with Bumblebee's windows rolled up, they didn't see when he deactivated his holoform. _Come out, Sam! _The Camaro suddenly burst into a cacophony of sound, his car alarm blaring over the voices and music.

"Augh! Whose car is that!?"

"What the fuck, somebody find the owner!" A few of the humans ran back into the house. Between the music, his engine, and his own car alarm, Bumblebee couldn't distinguish any voices inside the house, but he waited patiently until Sam appeared in the doorway before turning off his car alarm.

"B--!" Sam sputtered, staggering down the steps. Bumblebee rolled down his window obligingly and Sam stuck his head into the Autobot's interior, his fingers shaking slightly against Bumblebee's door. His heartbeat was elevated. "'Bee, what are you doing here?" he asked, hissing.

"_Houston, we have a problem," _Bumblebee answered with a clip from a famous movie. Sam let out a quiet frustrated sound in response, his hands tightening on the Autobot's door.

"Hey, freshman, is that your car?" An adolescent with a broad chest and thick eyebrows scowled from the steps leading into the house. He reminded Bumblebee of nothing so much as the pictures of 'cave men' on the Internet.

Sam lifted his head. "Oh, uh, no, it's my friend's – uh – he left it here, because he left to find you a tighter shirt."

Bumblebee thought the young man's shirt was already too tight, but he caught onto the joke a moment later even as the boy and his friend protested: "There _is _no tighter shirt!" "Yeah, we checked!" Then they bumped their fists together in demonstration of their manly brotherhood.

"Yeah, well," Sam stammered, opening Bumblebee's door finally. He put one foot in the Camaro when two more humans stumbled out of the house – one of them a dark-skinned boy with dark, curly hair and the other a taller male with longish blond hair.

"Dude, sweet ride!" The curly-haired boy cried, smiling widely. "You been holdin' out on us, bro?"

_Bro? _Bumblebee's engine rumbled. Only Miles had called Sam 'bro', and the two of them had been friends for some time. The Autobot had never seen this boy before. Sam rolled his eyes as he finished jumping into Bumblebee's driver seat. "I've only known you guys for seventeen hours," he snapped, fumbling for his seatbelt.

While this was going on another human approached from the house, this one a female with long, straight red-blonde hair and a very short dress. She went around Bumblebee's hood to the passenger side door and knelt there, her fingers wrapping so tightly around the door that Bumblebee got the unfortunate sensation of static. It was killing him to sit here and endure all this idiocy while Sam was visibly uncomfortable and Optimus was waiting; pretending to be a normal car had him nearly vibrating with frustration. "I _love _Camaros," the girl crooned, her voice dripping with the sort of tone that the scout attributed to pornographic videos on the Internet.

The last time girl to compliment Bumblebee's alt-mode in any sort of significant way had been Mikaela Banes, only this compliment was insincere and seemed – if the Autobot was gauging it right – to be more of a sexual appeal than any kind of genuine affection for a Chevrolet Camaro. A surge of irritation rose in the Autobot's circuits.

Sam squawked, stammering, and Bumblebee had to lock his wheels to keep from driving away right then and there while the girl began to climb into his interior without permission. "A-Alice, I – we –"

_No, Sam, don't let her in! _Bumblebee barely refrained from honking in alarm. With this 'Alice' in the car he would be forced to continue to play the part of a non-sentient car. _And for that matter, how could you drive around another human female when you have Mikaela waiting patiently for you in Nevada!?_

Alice took a seat. Sam grabbed the wheel automatically and reached for the gearshift.

Bumblebee responded a fraction of a second too early when Alice's weight settled, peeling into reverse as he suddenly realized what was wrong with Alice. _She's too heavy._

Her weight should have been less than Sam's. She was not as tall and certainly slighter than Sam, and as a female Alice should have had a higher body fat ratio than Sam. But as she settled solidly into the scout's passenger seat, he clocked her weight in at roughly one hundred and sixty pounds.

His wheels squealing, Bumblebee shifted into drive under Sam's guiding hand and accelerated down the street, this time forcing the meandering adolescents to get out of his way instead of suffering their thoughtlessness. He was preoccupied with this new development: the girl accompanying Sam had to be comprised of something other than biological components.

"My first car was my dad's Z-28," Alice was saying, her voice a low purr as if she was a porn star speaking in euphemisms about copulating. "I loved riding in that car … the feel of the engine as he shifted …"

Sam audibly swallowed. His hands trembled minutely against Bumblebee's steering wheel. "We shouldn't, uh, stare – I mean, share! – _share, _ahem, stories any more."

_Sam … _Bumblebee's broken voice clicked, inaudible over his converter. He couldn't determine where Sam's body tremors and stammers came from: Sam demonstrated similar nervousness around Mikaela before he had successfully courted the mechanic, after all. He flipped on his radio (now thankfully digital once again, post-upgrade from the 1976 version of the Camaro) and tuned in a 'country' song: _"… your cheatin' heart …" _a male singer twanged.

Sam choked on air and mashed his fingers against Bumblebee's radio; remembering to maintain his cover, Bumblebee obediently fell silent. "Geez, that's wrong," Sam grumbled.

Alice was very still in her seat. "… is there something wrong with your radio?" she asked, her voice deceptively quiet. The fingers of one of her hands dug tightly into the edge of the passenger seat, applying far more pressure than a human could hope to imitate.

_It can't be … a … Pretender?_ But Pretenders were only theoretical alt-forms. Autobots had struggled to come up with a way to successfully imitate a biological life form other than insubstantial holograms to no avail. Had the Decepticons successfully come up with a way to appear to be biological – to appear to be human?

Her fingers dug in tighter, tearing leather seating. _She's detected me …_ Sam didn't answer Alice's question. Bumblebee, on the other hand, suddenly wanted the potential Decepticon out of his interior immediately. After a few seconds of silence, he tuned into another song, louder than the last: _"She's a super-freak! Super-freak!"_

Sam immediately mashed his fingers against Bumblebee's radio again, but Bumblebee was not to be silenced again as he issued the only warning he could. Alice started to say something, but the Autobot effectively interrupted her by jerking her seat forward. "What the—" she began, gasping in an infuriated manner.

By this point Sam was completely distracted by Alice's predicament. Bumblebee was more than up to multitasking. He took control of his own steering from Sam even as he violently rammed Alice's seat forward, slamming her forehead into his dashboard.

The rebound was less than expected. _Metal!_ There was definitely a metal skull under that human face.

Sam cried out. "Oh my god!" Alice's hands released Bumblebee's seat. Bumblebee, now confident in his assessment, cranked his radio again and tuned to another song. _"She's a brick! House! She's mighty-mighty, just lettin' it all hang out!"_

"What is _wrong _with your car?" Alice demanded, delivering a vicious kick to the underside of Bumblebee's glove compartment where Sam couldn't see.

Unlike Sam's best attempts to damage Bumblebee long ago with his weak little human kicks, this one knocked a few circuits loose. Bumblebee growled, his engine revving, and retaliated by spitting waste coolant. The yellow-green liquid squirting into the Autobot's interior made Sam start to shout in disgust and made Alice issue a high-pitched squeal.

"Ugh! Ugh, it's in my _mouth!_" Sam cried, absolutely disgusted. He yanked desperately on the wheel, trying to pull Bumblebee over to the side of the road, and the Camaro complied. _If you want to keep up your charade you'll have to retreat now, _he thought smugly. _No human female would tolerate this._

"I'm so sorry," Sam stammered as soon as the scout had come to a stop. "I can – I have napkins – I--!"

But Alice, not speaking a word, opened Bumblebee's passenger side door. She climbed out and Bumblebee, shamelessly egging her on, began to play a clip of a crowd cheering and clapping. Alice spared a moment to send a venomous glance back at the Camaro before flouncing off, every inch an offended biological female even while Sam scrambled out of Bumblebee and shouted after her. "Come back--!"

He threw up his hands in defeat before turning back to Bumblebee, scowling. "What was that?" he demanded.

"_Woah, playing with fire … woah, my conscience is a liar! Oh, Lord, have mercy on the shameless sinner—" _Bumblebee shot back, smug. _Whatever she was, that's what you get for even considering a woman besides Mikaela!_

Sam slammed his fist down on Bumblebee's hood forcefully. Of course it was nowhere near enough to leave a dent, but the anger behind the blow startled the Autobot into sudden silence. "'Bee!" The human abruptly grit his teeth and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes.

The scout had learned to interpret that motion as either extreme fatigue or frustration. Bumblebee cut his engine and fell silent, doing his best to seem receptive to whatever Sam had to say while still in alt-mode.

But Sam just sighed. He twisted to sit on Bumblebee's hood, bracing his hands against the Autobot's frame, and hung his head. "Sorry," he said after a minute and fifteen seconds. "I just …"

_Yes? _Bumblebee willed Sam to continue, but his charge suddenly sat upright.

"Oh my god, Bumblebee, I totally forgot about my chat with Mikaela! Oh man she's gonna kill me!"

Bumblebee let out a rush of air through his vents, sighing in his own way. While he hadn't known all the details, Sam had provided Mikaela with a number of technological tools so that they could talk to each other as if face-to-face over the Internet. Apparently Sam had missed his first opportunity to make use of said equipment. While Sam scrambled to climb into Bumblebee's driver's seat again, the Autobot searched for a song that would remind Sam of the obvious fix: _just call her and apologize. I know your cellular phone works even on this coast!_

He didn't get a chance to find the song. Sam was turning his keys in Bumblebee's ignition; the Autobot ignored him. "Come on, 'Bee, I gotta—" but Sam broke off. "… wait. Wait a minute. What sort of problem?"

For anyone who was not Bumblebee, Mikaela, or Ron or Judy Witwicky, Sam's question might have seemed a non-sequitor. However, anyone who could claim closeness to Sam could also follow the human boy's wild conversation leaps. _"Message from Starfleet, captain," _he played. "_Optimus Prime," _said Optimus Prime's voice on the scout's speakers.

"Huh? Optimus – is-is everything okay?"

"Nuh-uh." Bumblebee's broken multi-toned voice warbled out of the speakers in the negative. "_—I need you, so I need you, so I need you!"_

"… You don't need me," Sam protested, his voice weak and frustrated.

Bumblebee let the same song keep playing: "_—Would you say that you don't care, leave me standing here – like the fool who is screamin' and drowning in despair?"_

"Holy crap, 'Bee, over the top much?" Sam grumbled, but he rubbed the steering wheel in a human gesture of affection. "I … guess Optimus Prime is going to tell me what's going on," he guessed.

"_You're beautiful! Just – just beautiful!" _Bumblebee's speakers clapped and cheered for Sam's correct deduction.

Sam sighed, and his weight shifted as if he was slumping in his seat. "Man, I don't even get to have one day at college," he grumbled under his breath, apparently trying to keep his voice too low for Bumblebee to hear. The Autobot felt a stab of sympathy, but he did his best to not transmit how poorly he felt, both for Sam and for what they were asking of him.

Sam sat up after a moment or two and cleared his throat. "Well, I guess you'd better take me to him," he said.

"_So shall it be!" _a cartoon character intoned over the scout's speakers. Bumblebee started his ignition and pulled away from the curb, taking Sam away from his dream life and back into harsh reality.

_To be continued_

_Song credits go to 3 Doors Down (So I Need You), Marx Richard (Playing With Fire), The Commodores (Brick House), Rick James (Super Freak), and Hank Williams Jr. (Your Cheatin' Heart). "So you have wished it, so shall it be!" is from Desiree, a ghost genie in the show Danny Phantom._

_Thank you so much to all the reviewers: Conna Stevenson (OMG I forgot to credit Whiplash to you in the first chapter! I'll correct that, erm), the light before the darkness (glad you're enjoying the fics!), New Level Darkness (I-I hope you continue to find this story a satisfying retelling of the new movie), GirlWaterShaman (glad you're enjoying this so far!), Lomesir (wow, I'm deeply flattered. =D Bumblebee has so much personality and is so intelligent, so I really enjoy writing from his POV; I'm glad you like my take on what's going on in his alien processors), Suomanona . Onzwald (haha, I hope you still like this story without the wine XD), Geekgirl (Oh, yes, I am VERY much looking forward to writing about Bumblebee and Simmons, and Sam's capture. It's going to be intense), Aniay (haha, writing fighting scenes is my specialty!), Yangu Fuyu (I hope you enjoyed my take on Bumblebee and Alice's meeting), Marie Kenobi (I intend to finish this story, although it may be slow in coming due to RL), Blume (haha, he really did seem to say 'whatever' then, didn't he? I'm revising the first chapter accordingly), Bookworm Gal (I did a slightly different take than you on Bumblebee's meeting with Alice. I hope you still like it. And yes, that conversation with Sam's parents will be fun to write), Ruskie (I honestly forgot Sam said that! I'm revising the chapter now), leleana (hehe, glad you enjoyed my take on that scene!), Hellfirefanatic (yes, BBB's body language there is hilarious!), DennistheMenace12 (yes, this story will follow the movie as closely as possible … sorry if this disappoints you), and CastielKicksAss (hahaha, oh Bumblebee …)._

_Thank you in advance for your reviews, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!_


	4. Hook, Line, and Sinker

**Chapter 3: Hook, Line, and Sinker**

Although Bumblebee knew he should remind Sam to contact Mikaela, he refrained from doing so for the perfectly selfish reason of not wanting Sam to be distracted from his meeting with Optimus. Mikaela would likely forgive Sam for his shortcoming regardless. He kept his windows rolled up and let Sam rest in his driver's seat, driving smoothly back towards Pennsylvania. At some point Sam fell into sleep – a human's version of recharge – and Bumblebee was left alone with his thoughts.

Alice concerned him deeply. It made _sense _for the Decepticons to steal the Allspark shard, and it would make sense for them to come after Allspark fragments, but if Alice was, in fact, a Decepticon – and Bumblebee had sorely underestimated the humans if they had the kind of technology necessary to create a cyborg with her level of realism – what reason did they have for coming after Sam? He remembered that Optimus had not ordered Bumblebee to continue to guard Sam, but only to 'collect' him for this discussion. _I suppose if Optimus had wanted me to guard anyone, it would be Mikaela with the Allspark fragment._ If the Decepticons had already collected the shard, they would come after the fragment next.

The more Bumblebee reflected on Sam's behavior that night, the more it bothered him. Sam was agitated, and he had been trembling minutely from the moment he had put his hands on Bumblebee's car door. Many things could potentially be wrong with the human – he could be sick, he could be troubled by something in his thoughts, or it could be something entirely different. He couldn't simply ask Sam what was the matter – even if he had a voice, Sam himself may not have known. Humans had a limited ability to consciously self-evaluate their status; most of their wellness strategies were subroutines not controlled by their cerebral processors.

A shortwave link option appeared on his commlink at 10:56 PM. He opened it. _Sir, I have Sam with me STOP. Where should I take him to QUERY?_

"_Transmitting the coordinates now," _Optimus replied. Upon receiving the latitude and longitude coordinates, Bumblebee cross-referenced them with a map online and determined that Optimus intended to meet with Sam in Ritchey Cemetery in Pennsylvania, off Route 76 Westbound. It would take roughly 30 minutes to get there, following all traffic laws.

_Acknowledged STOP. _Bumblebee hesitated a moment before continuing. _Sam is asleep STOP. He seems agitated almost to the point of being unwell STOP._

"_You are concerned for his well-being," _Optimus summarized.

_And there is something else as well STOP, _Bumblebee added. He related the story of Alice to the Prime. _I know you have had me guard Sam all this time, sir – (and I know it has been as much for me as for him, _he thought but did not say) -- _but with these new developments, I know it would be best if I guarded Mikaela instead STOP. Nonetheless, this … Pretender … _his digital code trailed off.

Optimus did not answer for a moment. _"I did not wish to alarm you, Bumblebee," _he said.

Bumblebee's tires twitched, causing him to swerve slightly. Sam mumbled something but did not wake up. _Alarm me with what QUERY?_

"_There is a chance – a small chance – that the Allspark has altered Sam._

"_Ratchet expressed this concern to me not long after the final battle for the Allspark. He stated that Sam had increased brain activity immediately following his interaction with the Cube. Whether or not this meant anything he could not be certain with dissecting the boy, he said – after all, no one knows with any certainty what effect the Allspark would have on a biological creature. Before Sam, no biological entity had extended contact with the Cube that we know of._

"_But there seemed to be no adverse effects and you reported nothing amiss, so I set the matter aside as unimportant. However, the Allspark shard Sam interacted with recently raised my concerns. The shard that was stolen has done _nothing, _Bumblebee – yet in the moment of Sam discovering a mere sliver, it created life as only the whole Cube could._

"_There is more to Sam than meets the eye. That is why you have remained with him this last year, and why, I hope, he will aid us. Forgive me for keeping this from you."_

Bumblebee mulled this information over, surprised. Abruptly the Allspark EM 'anomalies' made sense, and Sam's sudden 'acing' of his classes took on a different meaning. _Why was this kept from me!? _He wondered, distressed. _If I had known … _

No; if he had known, he would have done nothing different. Until now there had been no reason to believe the Decepticons had any hint of Sam's possible 'altering', and Bumblebee would never have told Sam if the boy didn't need to know. It would do nothing but make him doubt himself. _It was your decision, sir STOP. Please don't apologize to me STOP._ It made Bumblebee uncomfortable. _Although I now think there have been signs over this past year STOP._

"_Mm." _Optimus did not seem surprised. "_This Pretender, if that is indeed what that woman was, raises my concern as well. Bumblebee, I need a threat assessment."_

_She seemed reluctant to drop her cover, but that may have only been because she was near me STOP. She knew what I was almost immediately STOP. If she is after Sam for revenge, her charade would not be needed STOP. If she is after Sam because of his possible alteration, however, I cannot be certain what she will do with him STOP. It depends on the nature of the alteration STOP. _Bumblebee paused. _Do you know the nature of it, sir QUERY?_

"_Not entirely," _Optimus admitted. _"… It is possible that Sam carries some of the informational matrix of the Allspark in his mind."_

_Then the Decepticons seek every possible part of the Allspark … and part of the Allspark is Sam EXCLAMATION! _Bumblebee's converter whined. _Sir—_

"_I know." _Bumblebee could almost see Optimus shuttering his optics in resignation. _"If this is the case, then we too need to know what Sam knows. The Allspark is the only available source of information older than even The Fallen – if The Fallen is more than legend."_

Then the Autobots, too, were to deceive Sam. It was subtle and not meant to be unkind, but Bumblebee immediately understood the full implications of Optimus' desire for Sam's help. Yes, Sam could aid their cause as a liaison to the humans, but there was a chance the alien information in his mind would be of even more use. Furthermore, if Sam were to agree to help them, it would draw him back within the protective circle of the Autobots rather than leaving him exposed and all but alone on a distant coast.

It was not unlike when Jazz and Bumblebee had charged Sam with the Allspark sixteen months previous: it was merely an honorary position to give Sam something to concentrate on and keep him safe. _And look how that turned out, _Bumblebee thought bitterly.

He was rapidly approaching where Optimus waited; Sam hadn't stirred except to periodically issue a snore as his head lolled against the seat. As Bumblebee made the last turn into the cemetery, he laid optics on Optimus' alt-mode, sitting silent on the access road leading up into the graveyard.

"Is he still asleep?" Optimus' voice rumbled from the Peterbilt truck.

_Yes, sir STOP. _Bumblebee rolled back slightly before parking himself. _Can we just let him rest for a few more hours QUERY?_

Optimus's engine turned over. Bumblebee could nearly sense the impatience off the Prime, having been in his constant company for over 140 vorns. But at length the Prime's vent's cycled. "Yes. He will need his rest, after all." Bumblebee chirruped his thanks, but he was surprised when Optimus continued, "You as well. I will stand guard."

Embarrassed, Bumblebee settled a little more deeply on his axles. He did need a recharge after racing across the country at the highest possible sustained speed. _Yes, sir STOP._

He powered down gradually and slipped into recharge to the quiet purr of Optimus' engine.

&

When Bumblebee came back online, it was to Sam opening his car door and a gray, overcast sky. "A cemetery," he was grumbling, his voice gravelly from disuse during the night. "Man, I'm gonna be sore."

Somewhat irritated with himself for not coming online the moment Sam did, Bumblebee let Sam climb out with a _chirp-chirp_ like a car being remotely locked. Sam patted his dash once. "Morning, 'Bee."

Optimus had unfolded into his protoform, standing tall in the grass of the cemetery. Bumblebee initiated his own transformation sequence, but Optimus shook his head once and Bumblebee froze, settling back into car mode before the transformation could get more than a few rotaries in.

"Good morning, Sam," Optimus greeted the boy.

"Optimus … What time is it?" Sam asked, rubbing the back of his head as he came around the Camaro's hood.

"It is 6:18 AM locally," Optimus answered.

Sam climbed over the low stone wall that separated Sam from the green lawn where Optimus stood. "God, so early," he grumbled. He looked up at Optimus, thrusting out his arms. "You couldn't give me one day? Just – just one day in college!?"

The Prime didn't waste words. "I'm sorry, Sam. A fragment of the Allspark has been stolen."

Sam's body tensed visibly. "What, like Decepticon stolen?"

"We left it in the government's care as a sign of goodwill, but it seems …" Optimus' gaze roamed away from Sam and across the cemetery before again falling on the adolescent. "We need your help, Sam."

Bumblebee didn't visibly tense, but the quiet deception grated on him. Of course they could use Sam's help if he would provide it, but it wasn't their sole reason for asking … _Sir, Sam was not entirely himself last night STOP. Can't we just tell him we are concerned for his—_

_Not now STOP, _came the answer in digital code, followed by a warning:_ COMMLINK TERMINATED ERROR 1738394UL.2 ENCRYPTION DENIED_

The error startled the scout; Optimus had just effectively locked Bumblebee out of the Prime's commlink, silencing him. Chastened, Bumblebee settled lower on his chassis.

"_My _help?" Sam was exclaiming. "Wh-why?"

"There are those in your government who believe our continued presence has brought vengeance upon your planet," Optimus answered. "They must be reminded of the truth: of the trust and the common goals we share. You must speak for us, Sam."

Sam sputtered. "What, like – leave college? I just _got _here," he protested.

"Fate rarely calls upon us in a moment of our choosing," Optimus replied gravely. Bumblebee sensed the apology in his words.

Sam, however, did not. "This isn't my war!"

"I fear it soon will be." This the Prime almost said to himself, looking away from Sam and shuttering his optics.

Sam sighed, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. Bumblebee perceived the exasperation and exhaustion in his body and wondered if Optimus saw it too. "Look, I want to help – I do. But I-I'm not that person. I'm not a-a politician or whatever, I'm just a normal kid. This is my life now. I _belong _here."

Sam _wanted _to belong here. But given how worn he was after only one day at college, Bumblebee wondered if he was right.

"Besides, you're _Optimus Prime._" Sam thrust out his hands, gesticulating to show just how Optimus' very appearance seemed to embody his authority. "You don't need me." He turned away, starting to walk back towards Bumblebee with downcast eyes and slumped shoulders.

"We need you more than you know," Optimus murmured, looking away.

Sam opened Bumblebee's driver side door and began to climb in, not looking at the Prime again. "Can you take me back to Princeton? Please?" Sam asked in a strained voice.

Bumblebee brought his engine back to life, but he didn't move right away. The Prime, alone in his thoughts, was peering across the horizon.

"I've got my first class in like … three hours," Sam added. "And I gotta take a shower."

"_Go, Bumblebee." _The commlink Bumblebee had never actually closed suddenly crackled back to life. The Autobot jumped back in surprise at the channel being unblocked. Shifting into reverse, he backed down the shallow hill towards the main road again, optics half-trained towards the Prime's protoform disappearing behind the grass line. He didn't answer his commander or Sam, braced for the coming chastisement.

It came from Optimus first. _"Sam does not believe in himself. That is why he refuses to aid us. Would you have me undercut him further by implying something is wrong with him?"_

Bumblebee's engine sputtered, causing Sam to shift in alarm. "'Bee?" But the Autobot steadied himself quickly enough. He disagreed with the Prime's assessment of Sam's motives for declining to help, but he reined in the desire to argue and merely acknowledged his leader's question. _No, sir STOP._

"Where are we, anyway?" Sam peered out Bumblebee's window. "Holy crap, Pennsylvania!? How long is it going to take me to get back to school!? Don't tell me I'm going to miss my first—"

"_Don't you worry, young man – we're always on time!" _Bumblebee responded hastily with a few stolen clips from radio commercials. His main attention was on his commlink.

"_You will remain with him and guard him. Hopefully he will have you; if not, my order still stands." _Optimus' tone turned resigned. _"Deal with Alice at the first opportunity. If Sam does not have to know he is still hunted, it will be for the best."_

_Yes, sir STOP._

"Thank god," Sam groaned at Bumblebee. "You know, they'll drop you from classes if you don't show up the first day."

"_With the shard already stolen, we have only the fragment and Sam to protect, but it is doubtful that the Decepticons know of the fragment. I am already gathering our forces here. We will be ready to back you up at a moment's notice."_

_Thank you, sir STOP. _Bumblebee was not ashamed to feel relief at the thought.

"You know, I don't get it – what does Optimus need _me _for?" Sam griped. "I'm – okay, I'm glad I could help at Mission City. I just … I don't want to ever get involved in anything like that again. You know?"

"_Do not let Sam out of your sensors, Bumblebee," _Optimus warned, and the commlink went dead.

Bumblebee didn't immediately reply to Sam; Sam continued, not needing any input from the Camaro. "You don't have to guard me anymore, okay? Seriously. You can go do whatever it is you guys do, protecting the world and stuff. I'm not important enough to keep protecting all by myself."

_Sam … _Had he been in protoform, Bumblebee would have bowed his head and shaken it in disagreement. In alt-mode he merely revved his engine for a brief moment. _Even if there were no chance you were infected by the Allspark, you would always be important enough to warrant protection! _Perhaps Optimus was right and Sam underestimated his own worth.

"So … you know …" Sam trailed off, seeming dejected.

"_B-but you're my pal! We're pals, right?" _sputtered a man from an old movie out of Bumblebee's speakers.

The Autobot's spirits were lifted slightly to hear Sam laugh in response. "Yeah, yeah, of course. Just – I guess I need a little space. You don't have to worry about me: I'll be fine."

_Oh, Sam, I hope you're right. _But when Bumblebee dropped Sam off at his dormitory and drove out of sight, he quietly cut his engine in the student parking lot, a holographic parking decal dangling from his rear view mirror, and did what he did best: spying.

&

Guarding and spying on Sam in college was not like guarding him at his home. For one thing, his new home was fundamentally a large apartment overpopulated with students; listening in on Sam's conversations was all but impossible with the amount of ambient noise rendered by the hundreds of other humans wandering around the building. Secondly, Sam knew what he looked like whereas he never noticed the 1976 Chevrolet Camaro he had purchased at Bolivia's sixteen months ago was the same car that had lurked around his home and school for three weeks. In other words, Bumblebee had to do a much better job of hiding.

He spent most of the morning parked between two Sports Utility Vehicles in the student parking lot, catching snatches of conversation and collecting information off of the Princeton University servers when relevant.

This is what Bumblebee learned over the course of the morning:

1. Sam's roommate was a boy named Leonardo Spitz – the same dark-haired boy from the party the night before. He ran a website called Freshman 55, which was meant for determining which of the females at Princeton were the 'hottest' and the 'most fuckable'. He also sold calendars printed with pictures of kittens via the Internet. Most interestingly, he also ran 'The Real Effing Deal Dot Com', which was focused on proving the existence of giant alien robots on Earth. Bumblebee might have been more impressed by Leo's dedication to the truth if the few snatches of conversation he caught between Sam and Leo were not so … _egotistical._

"You left us _hanging, _bro!" Leo groaned upon Sam's return to his dorm. "I thought you had a girlfriend! What were you doin' drivin' Alice around!? You know she's my woman!"

_Alice is dating Leonardo Spitz? _Unlikely. Although Leo was welcome to attempt to claim her, as Bumblebee was in complete agreement with the boy regarding Sam's relationship with Mikaela.

"She just – she – she wanted a ride, okay, so I drove her. Nothing happened," Sam shot back.

"You could've let me borrow your car and let _me _drive her," Leo protested. "Then something woulda happened."

"What? Wh—look, first of all, that-that's not my car, okay? Freshmen aren't allowed to have cars on campus. And-and-and I can't believe you're suggesting I should let you have _sex_ in-in--! In my car!"

Bumblebee wasn't entirely certain how he felt about the idea of anyone participating in actual intercourse inside him. He _did _know the idea of Leo and _Alice _attempting to have anything like sex within him made him want to void all his waste containers. _Disgusting!_ (And if that was how he felt about it, Alice probably felt no different, being a Decepticon.)

"Wait, is the Camaro your car or not?" Leo sounded smug about catching Sam in a lie.

"Look, whatever! I gotta take a shower." If there was any further conversation on the matter, Bumblebee couldn't hear it.

2. Bumblebee also learned about a website named 'Giant Effing Robots Dot Com'. Someone going by the pseudonym 'Robo-Warrior' ran this one, and without some concentrated hacking Bumblebee had no way to uncover his identity. He set the matter aside as unimportant, although he tagged the webpage in his memory banks for later investigation.

3. Sam shared his dormitory building with Alice.

This distressing realization did not make itself known until a few minutes before Sam left for his first class – Astronomy 101, according to his schedule. The not-a-human emerged from the front of the building, dressed in a powder-blue dress that barely came below the juncture of her legs.

Bumblebee looked Alice up on Freshman 55 in hopes of getting her last name. (He was not surprised to find the male population of the school rated her quite highly. Her looks were likely just as calculated as the appearance of Bumblebee's holoform to evoke a favorable response.) No luck. He cross-referenced every 'Alice' in the school with their class year and dormitory until he had eliminated all but one, an Alice Carroll.

Her class schedule was identical to Sam's. _Not a coincidence. _What did the Decepticon intend to do? Was she perhaps assigned to the same role as Bumblebee – guard Sam and spy on him? What for?

Not for the first time Bumblebee wished Wheeljack had been able to perfect the solid light hologram technology. Unfortunately, at high photon concentrations the holograms tended to glow brightly, losing any resemblance to the creatures they were supposed to imitate. The photons transferred energy too easily to maintain the solidity of a being made up of atoms. If such a technology had been successful, Sam would have likely found himself sitting uncomfortably between Alice and Bumblebee's holoform in class. The mental image gave the Autobot some grim amusement, even as he started his engine to covertly follow Sam (accompanied by Leo) towards his class building.

4. Leo chattered about useless things, but mostly about himself. Sam, Bumblebee noted from his brief chance to lay optics on the human, was rubbing his forehead a lot. Perhaps he was reading too much into it when he wondered what pained Sam. After all, listening to Leo talk incessantly in that half-English-half-Spanish blather that meant nothing and merely filled the air with white noise was enough to give _Bumblebee_ an ache in the cerebral processor – and Autobots couldn't get headaches.

5. Humans still taught their children that the universe consisted of three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. Also, Sam's Astronomy professor sounded 'skeevy', to borrow a nonsense word from Mikaela. For some reason everything he said sounded like a euphemism for sex. Bumblebee, determined to not be caught off-guard by any more human laws, had downloaded even the sexual harassment guidelines of Princeton University, and he felt fairly certain the professor had walked all over these rules and thrown them into a metaphorical fire.

The Camaro _was_ a bit distracted by the faculty members passing his alt-mode where he had parked nearby the classroom building. The sign over the parking space he occupied read "AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY. TOWING ENFORCED." Unimpressed, Bumblebee's rear view mirror now sported a holographic faculty parking pass.

"Did Rachel actually go through with picking up a sports car?" asked one teacher of another, passing by with steaming cups in their hands despite the warm weather.

The other teacher shrugged. "It looks good, though. I'll ask her at lunch."

Bumblebee preened a little – at least until he heard Sam's voice from the classroom.

6. Sam had gone a little … crazy.

"I'm sorry, but Einstein was wrong."

Bumblebee sat up on his chassis. Einstein, a famous human physicist, _had _been wrong – not for the known three spatial dimensions and one time dimension known to human physicists at the time, but under the laws governing the other seventeen folded spatial and temporal dimensions that made up subspace. It was this subspace, which humans had barely scratched the surface of with their growing knowledge of 'quantum physics' as they called it, which allowed for Cybertronian space bridges.

Despite the thousands of years that had passed since Bumblebee had outmoded to the scout class, the Autobot's core programming still contained intimate knowledge of the engineering needed to maintain a stable space bridge. Humans would refer to it as 'folding' space to create the illusion of faster-than-light travel, but in actuality it was quite the opposite; a space bridge _unfolded_ four of the subspace dimensions – three spatial, and one temporal – so matter traveling through a space bridge traveled through dimensions not related to the basic four of this universe. By 'looping' the second temporal dimension, time could be made to 'stand still' in the first temporal dimension, and thus instantaneous travel across the galaxy could be achieved.

The Camaro knew all this; any Cybertronian who had desired to download this knowledge could have obtained it from the informational matrix that spanned Cybertron. The real question was: how did _Sam _know?

"Excuse me?" the professor sounded deeply offended by Sam's outburst.

"Oh, sure, he's right about E equals M C squared in the four basic dimensions, but what about the other seventeen?" Sam was talking too quickly, and his voice was somehow mechanical, detached. The Autobot listened in stunned silence. "Nobody talks about the other seventeen dimensions."

_Twenty-one dimensions! Not even human superstring theorists have arrived at that conclusion! _Bumblebee knew _he _had never discussed Cybertronian physics with Sam, but the number Sam had come up with had not been pulled out of nowhere.

"Young man, you are in _my _universe right now," the professor started to say, but Sam spoke right over him.

"Okay, clear example – as this equation shows—" there was the sound of chalk scraping on a blackboard, a sound Bumblebee had grown quite familiar with over the past year of guarding Sam through his last year of high school –"—if you break down the elemental particles of energon, assuming a constant decay rate, and extrapolate f-f-f-f-f-fooor the spatial convergences discovered by Sentinel Prime, you end up with an equation for interdimensional energy creation that Einstein alone can't explain. Even if you throw dark matter into the mix the n-nu-nu-numbers don't balance out. See?" The sound of chalk scraping ceased. "The other s-s-seventeen dimensions are all folded up but they contain antiparticles and when you spread them out you get—"

"_Young man!_" The professor roared. Bumblebee, completely astounded by Sam's sudden beyond-Einstein knowledge of physics, honked his horn in surprise at the interruption. Sam, thankfully, finally fell silent at this shout.

"I will _not _be made a fool in _my _classroom. And _not,_" he snarled, "in front of the _dean._"

Bumblebee wasn't sure what 'the dean' was, but he made note to look it up once he figured out what had just happened to Sam.

"Now _get out!_" There was the sound of dozens of students laughing nervously.

Sam stammered his reply, but it was not the terrifyingly hitched stammers that had interrupted his Cybertronian-level lecture: it was his normal, agitated stammer. "O-okay."

"Anyone _else _care to have a mental breakdown?" The professor demanded over the sound of the classroom door banging shut.

_Primus, _Bumblebee thought. _It's just like Captain Archibald Witwicky._

7. Archibald Witwicky, the infamous Captain who had traveled to the Arctic Circle in the late 1800's and subsequently gone crazy, claiming to have seen a giant 'Ice Man', had not been wrong about the Ice Man. The Ice Man had been, in fact, Megatron, frozen into stasis lock by the damage he sustained in the Earth's atmosphere and the low temperatures of Earth in its Ice Age ten thousand years previous to the present day. However, it was not merely claims of seeing a giant man in the ice of the Arctic that had landed him in a mental asylum: it was his claims of seeing strange symbols before his eyes, his sudden inability to comprehend the world around him in a meaningful manner, and his persistent belief in realities that did not exist.

In other words, Archibald Witwicky had 'gone crazy' with Cybertronian knowledge far beyond the comprehension of humans. He had not, of course, come into direct contact with the Allspark, but whatever he had activated in Megatron that day the Cube's coordinates had been imprinted on his glasses, more than just a flash of laser light had made its impression upon the man's mind.

Bumblebee did not mean to consider the humans in any way mentally inferior to Cybertronians: it was just that sort of thinking that led the Decepticons to underestimating Sam in the final battle for the Cube. But human minds weren't meant for sudden and instant absorption of so much knowledge, especially when such knowledge would be entirely abstract without any references to anchor it. They were not built to download information – they learned by repetition and 'critical thinking' and gradual understanding. It was inefficient – different – not inferior. Eventually, given time and room to grow, the humans would come to the same understanding of the universe as the Cybertronians had. Perhaps they would even progress beyond it. But that knowledge had to come gradually, with every new discovery building on the last: even the Cybertronians had not immediately discovered the seventeen subspace dimensions, and they were long-lived beings with perfect memory and computers for minds.

Bumblebee drew the only possible conclusion: the Allspark had in fact altered Sam. Its informational matrix had allowed Sam to better comprehend the subjects taught to him in his last year of high school, which had, in turn, landed Sam here in a prestigious college. But something had triggered Sam's mind and opened the floodgates of the collective wisdom of Cybertron, and now the human boy was suffering from some kind of dangerous overload.

Bumblebee tracked Sam's progress back across the campus with growing alarm.

8. When Sam picked up his cell phone to make a phone call, Bumblebee didn't hesitate to tap the call. Under other circumstances he would have refrained – Sam hated it when Bumblebee listened in on his phone conversations – but at the moment, Sam's well-being was of greater concern to the Autobot than Sam's privacy.

Alice, he noted with some relief, had not left class to follow Sam. He set the matter of the Pretender aside for the moment.

The scout was not surprised when the call went out to Mikaela. The mechanic picked up on the third ring. "Hello, Sam," she said in a tone that bespoke pure irritation. "Call to apologize for standing me up on our first live chat?"

Well, Sam might have deserved it after forgetting about his online chat with his girlfriend. Bumblebee felt a bit guilty as well for letting Sam fail to call Mikaela and apologize the night before.

"Mikaela!" Sam's voice, no longer distant through the tapped line, was breathless and frightened. "Something's happening to me!"

"You're finally hitting puberty?" Mikaela's voice was almost teasing now.

"I'm _serious,_" Sam protested. "I told you about Archibald Witwicky – you know, my great-great-grandfather that discovered Megatron and went crazy, right? Started seeing symbols in his head. Well, it's – hey!"

Here Sam burst into a violent chatter that bore little resemblance to English. In fact, Bumblebee couldn't believe his audio receptors, but what Sam shouted was "_Don't touch that!" … _in _Cybertronian. _Of course Sam's human voice couldn't perfectly imitate the multitones of the Cybertronian language, but the words were unmistakable.

"— The symbol thing, it's happening to me."

The confirmation of Bumblebee's assessment only made the Autobot's spark feel heavy in its chamber.

"What are you talking about, Sam?" Mikaela sounded exasperated and concerned.

"And there's other stuff too," Sam continued, talking faster and faster. "I just read a nine-hundred-three page astronomy book in thirty-two point eight seconds and had a nervous meltdown in the middle of class. I – hey, hey, hey, watch the feet, watch the feet! - it's like my brain's been hijacked ever since I—"

Sam broke off. The phone line was silent for a moment. "Ever since what?" Mikaela asked at length.

"Ever since I touched the splinter of the Allspark," Sam breathed.

_Of course. I should have seen it! _Bumblebee thought. _Sam activated the fragment and it created the Transformers. But the fragment also activated Sam's latent Allspark knowledge!_

"You still have it, right? You haven't touched it, have you?" Sam demanded.

"It's fine, Sam, it's safe," Mikaela reassured her boyfriend. "It's in the shop's safe."

_Oh, Mikaela, why did you have to say that over a cell phone line!? _Bumblebee cringed mentally. If Soundwave was on Earth – and the Autobot laid the odds 100-to-1 that he was – he could very well be listening in at this very moment. Bumblebee wished he could apply an Autobot-level encryption to the line, but neither Sam nor Mikaela's phones would be able to handle the sheer amount of data such an encryption would generate.

"Do _not _touch it," Sam hissed.

"Okay, I won't," Mikaela promised. There was a pause in the conversation. "Hang on." The phone line crackled with the sounds of the girl putting her phone down on a hard surface.

There was a high-pitched scream that was not made by Mikaela's voice, followed by Mikaela shouting something. As acute as Bumblebee's hearing was, through the phone line he was only as good as Mikaela's phone, which unfortunately wasn't anywhere near good enough to allow the distant sounds to resolve into something intelligible. This carried on for another minute and forty-four seconds, during which both Autobot and boyfriend listened silently (except for Sam's breathing into the mouthpiece).

"—worst nightmare," Bumblebee made out, accompanied by another high-pitched screech and the sound of metal banging on metal.

"What the heck was that?" Sam demanded even as Mikaela picked her phone back up.

Mikaela was slightly winded by whatever had happened, but she didn't sound as if she was in pain. Bumblebee cycled his vents with relief. "Something we can't talk about over an open phone line."

Now _they remember protocols. _The children, of course, only feared retaliation from the federal government for breaking their contractual agreement to keep the existence of the Cybertronians secret. Little did they know that the American government was the least of their worries. Of course, this meant that Mikaela had just dealt with some kind of Autobot or Decepticon – more likely a Decepticon from the sound of it. _Who was it? Were they after the fragment?_

"I'm going to catch the next flight to Princeton; I'll see you in a few hours," Mikaela continued. "And Sam – be _careful._"

"Yeah, you too," Sam answered, sounding as if he was chewing his lower lip.

The humans hung up at almost exactly the same time.

"Hello, Autobot," said Alice, standing next to Bumblebee's passenger side door.

9. Pretenders, it seemed, didn't have an EM signature that differed significantly from that of humans.

Bumblebee revved his engine in alarm at the discovery that while he had been concentrating on the phone call he had allowed a known Decepticon to get so close. He threw his gearshift into reverse, but Alice's hand slammed down on Bumblebee's door. "Now now, no need to get … _nasty_," she chastised. "What's it going to look like if Sam Witwicky's car runs down a poor defenseless freshman girl?"

The scout acknowledged that it would create a bad situation for Sam. Of course, Alice's existence was a bad situation for Sam. "_State your purpose!_" demanded a football coach from a movie.

The Pretender chuckled. "Look, I'm just here to give you fair warning," she purred. "You're probably planning to waste me as soon as you can, or come running to Sam's rescue. But I have bad news for you, little Autobot …" she pressed her body up against the Camaro's doorframe. "I'm just the _bait,"_ she whispered. "And every good trap has _claws._"

A police siren _chirp-honked _behind Bumblebee. The Autobot's EM sensors whined at him as the old identification popped up on his diagnostics. _Barricade … _But the Saleen Ford Mustang police cruiser had disappeared immediately following the battle of the Allspark. Bumblebee, the Autobot who arguably knew him best, knew that Barricade was only loyal to one Cybertronian.

And that was how Bumblebee realized that Megatron had come back to life.

_To be continued_

_It's totally like 3 AM my time, so I'm going to have to save the review replies for later this morning. Sorry._

_Logistical errors dealt with in this chapter: 1)Bee picks up Sam from the frat house at night but talks to Optimus in the morning. 2) Why does Optimus think Sam is in danger? It must have something to do with the Allspark, of course, which only makes sense if Optimus thinks Sam still has something to do with the Allspark. Also there's no proof that Barricade dies in the first movie, so I'm breathing life into him again. Somebody's gotta keep 'Bee distracted until the trap closes around Sam (and Mikaela, and Leo …)_

_Regarding Bumblebee's shortwave speech: it's a completely made up Cybertronian 'morse code'. Real Morse Code ended every sentence with STOP, but since Bumblebee is from a super-advanced race and all, their morse code has optional endings like QUERY? and EXCLAMATION! It sounds like a phone modem, if you're curious._

_Thanks for reading, and thank you to all who review!_


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